


snowflakes

by Uteros



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-02 22:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 51,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6585403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uteros/pseuds/Uteros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sugawara Koushi and Daichi Sawamura  live quiet, happy lives, Sugawara could never ask for more. Well, other than the answer to where two of his teammates disappeared to and who are these kids that replaced them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. does it really need a chapter title because

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first long fic that I feel confident enough in to post /wheezes, please be easy on me I'm a little baby. I've worked on this for around five months now so! I hope some people find it okay! There will more than likely be a second part probably -crosses fingers-  
> and also tysm to my brother AviatorHead and my other dear friend who I don't know the Ao3 handle atm for being totally supportive and helping with revisions ;; v ;; //  
> I'll get out of here now eep

"Got it?"

"Yep."

The key turned with a bit of effort, the lock giving muffled groan in protest, a byproduct from its years of use. The cold wasn't friendly to the rusting metal, but luckily Sugawara was able to retrieve the key in one piece and push open the gym doors. The warm air that met him and brushed his cheeks made him eager to get inside, Daichi matched his steps and went to flick on the lights.

Sugawara and Daichi performed their usual practice day routine: meet up after class, walk down to the gym together, get ready before the others came and wait for them to get ready. It was easier that way since if all of them squished into the changing room at once it could get crowded. They would get their head start on getting the gym ready in this time while the others got changed, they would get their help as they came out.

Even after a rocky start, the school year was going great. The snow had yet to leave, but the big gym left them with plenty of room and time to practice. Outside of practice had been going well for Sugawara, too. His grades were steady and his workload was manageable, he could hardly complain.

Sugawara knocked the snow off the bottoms of his sneakers at the door, Daichi doing the same before the two of them wandered off towards the changing rooms with echoing footsteps, the door squealing shut behind them. Their wet sneaker steps squeaked on the clean floor, Daichi spoke up over them.

"Coach Ukai should be around this Thursday."

"Oh?"

"He says he wants to do some reassessing and other stuff before our next match."

"Sounds interesting," Sugawara pulled the wool hat off his head and stuffed it into his coat pocket, leading way into the changing room. It was warmer since it was closer to the school and kept isolated from the gym. They set down their bags on the nearby benches and started to strip from their coats.

"What I think will be interesting is when he tells them that we're going to be trying a different set up."

"A different set up? Like what?"

"He wants to get Kageyama and Hinata used to working apart, as well as us working with them."

"Good luck with that," Sugawara chuckled, pulling the zipper of his gym bag and fetching his uniform "It would be a good skill, but if we're putting Tsukishima and Kageyama together, we'll need a...uh..." Sugawara stopped a moment, tapping his chin as he held his uniforms shirt in his free hand. Daichi looked up at him curiously.

"...Good luck?"

"Yeah! That! Kinda?" Sugawara snapped his fingers and smiled, Daichi dimpled back with a light laugh. Sugawara found his shorts and gave them a quick whip to unfold them. "And high spirits!"

"Yup, you said it," Daichi grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up over his head. Sugawara stopped a moment to stare, blinking curiously.

"Don't you usually go in the stall?"

"The stalls are too cold, especially when you bump them," He grunted, tossing the shirt on to his bag while he picked up the other. For a seventeen year old, he was pretty toned. Sugawara guessed it was from his passion of playing volleyball, so it did require you to be in pretty good shape. Sugawara's eyes flicked back up to Daichi's face, meeting his gaze with a smile.

"Oh, yeah yeah! I get it. We should hurry anyways," Sugawara encouraged. Daichi smirked back and the two changed without much further word, Sugawara avoided watching him to not be awkward.

\---------

"Get out here, you little turd!"

"Hey! No jabs at my height!" Noya stuck his tongue out, his hands rested on Asahi's back while Tanaka crouched at his other side, ready to spring. Asahi could only stand in the middle, on edge while Tanaka and Noya ran circles around him. They were horsing around again, Asahi was stuck in between them after they had gotten changed and came out booming with energy for practice. Goofing off while waiting for the others was a usual occurrence, sadly. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi were stationed near the back wall, muttering amongst themselves while tiredly scrutinizing their other teammates from afar.

Sugawara stood next to the changing room door, peeking in with his hands folded in front of him. Daichi's head poked out, making him jump.

"They're not in there."

"They're not?"

Daichi shook his head again as he stepped out. "It's empty."

"Maybe they're sick...?"

“I’m not sure if I saw them go in,” Daichi scratched the back of his neck, taking another look back skeptically.

"Hey, uh, are we starting soon?" Asahi spoke up, grabbing their attention. Noya and Tanaka were too preoccupied to look into what was taking so long, but Daichi and Sugawara started towards them.

"Have any of you seen Hinata and Kageyama?"

"Huh? Yeah, just this morning," Noya finally looked their way, Tanaka immediately took advantage of this and flicked him in the temple. The teen hissed and swatted a hand at the other, Tanaka bellowing a laugh while Noya fought to compose himself.

"They're not here?" Asahi picked the conversation back up while he managed to stumble away from the situation.

"No, we haven't seen them show up."

"It's unlike the two of them to skip practice without a good reason," Daichi pointed out and Noya stepped away from Asahi, ushering Tanaka to buzz off while Yamaguchi and Tsukishima finally approached.

"I didn't see them at lunch though, maybe they left?"

"I saw them," Tsukishima butted in, the rest turned to look and he stopped a few feet away with Yamaguchi, "They both said they were sick and left."

"Sick?" Tanaka gave a skeptical look.

"I hope they're alright," Sugawara put the knuckle of his index finger to his lip. "It's not very like them to be sick, either."

“Maybe they got lost again.”

“Or they got in trouble for fighting. Again,” Tanaka added on to Noya’s speculations with a shrug. “Really puts a damper on practice, though!”

“Come on now, a teams not a team when we’re not all here, but we can still prepare for when they get back,” Sugawara stepped in again, waving a hand. “I’m sure they had a good reason for not being here, we’ll ask them tomorrow.”

\--------

"Alright, go get changed!" Daichi's voice rang over the noise, their volleyball bouncing to the floor while a collective yes answered him. The gym had heated up significantly since they had started practice. Even without Hinata and Kageyama around to help get everyone fired up, or even just each other, this practice had been a successful one.

Their teammates pulled themselves off towards the changing room, Noya still bounced around energetically while Tanaka dragged his feet behind him. Sugawara made his way towards Daichi with a few quick steps and gave him a tap on the shoulder.

"Hey!"

"Hiya."

"What are you doing after this?"

"Uh," Daichi shrugged with a little grin. "Don't we always walk home?"

"I was thinking of going to get coffee, if you wanted to come," Sugawara offered with a smile. It was cold and getting a bit late, but he wasn't ready to go home just yet. The coffee shop wasn't far from either of their houses too, it was their usual spot if they chose to hang out.

"Sure, sounds fun," Daichi nodded after a moment's thought while Sugawara kept pace at his side, feeling the excitement bloom in his chest.

"Great! We'll just get changed and..." Sugawara cut himself off when movement at the edge of his vision caught his attention, he stopped walking and looked back. Daichi stopped as well, following his gaze to the open gymnasium door where Takeda stood. The teacher was bundled up in a sweater and looking about the gym, leaning in through the doorway. As soon as he caught Sugawara and Daichi's eyes, he stepped in.

"Hey there! Could I get a word with the two of you for a minute?"

"Takeda?" The two came strolling over, the door swung shut behind the teacher and he met them halfway. He looked chilled, even from just his short walk from the outside into the gym his nose and cheeks had reddened. "What brings you here?"

"I've been looking for Hinata and Kageyama, have any of you heard word from them?"

"We were wondering where they were too," Daichi gave a flick of his head towards the changing room. "They didn't show up to practice today, but Noya says he saw them this morning, and Tsukishima saw them at lunch."

"We haven't been able to find them all day," Takeda looked confused, Daichi and Sugawara stole a quick look to one another before looking back.

"What do you mean?"

"They were marked as absent for attendance in all of their classes today," Takeda explained, glancing to the clipboard in his red fingertips. "But you say Noya and Tsukishima saw them?"

"Yes," Sugawara nodded firmly. "Maybe they were missed?"

"We'll have to check again, but thank you. Do you think I can talk to the others when they come out?"

"Of course," Sugawara nodded, glancing towards the changing room. "They should be out any minute now-"

A hard bounce caught him off guard, he stumbled backwards.

Sugawara was unsure of where they got the volleyball, or how they had smuggled it into the changing room, but it came flying out pretty fast when it hit him right in the forehead. It then proceeded to ricochet off of Takeda's clipboard and then bounce off the top of Daichi's head, completing its course by rolling to the floor with a last few futile bounces. Sugawara's hands flew up to his face while he stumbled another step back, a chorus of confusing noises came from the changing room.

"Holy shit!"

"You hit all of them!"

"I was trying to hit you, dumbass-"

"Guys!" Hands took Sugawara's shoulders to keep him from tripping further, Daichi yelled over his shoulder. "What did I say about throwing stuff outside of practice?"

"Sorry!" Apologies were quickly tossed from the two boys- Noya and Tanaka, obviously- and Daichi turned back to him.

"I'm okay," Sugawara confirmed with a light chuckle, rubbing the bridge of his nose while he peeked his eyes open over his hands. "It wasn't too hard."

Takeda peeked over Daichi's shoulder who looked relieved. He helped him straighten back up while he looked to Takeda who was eyeing the changing room. An idea flashed in Sugawara's head, though he was hoping it wasn't from getting hit.

"Don't you guys call parents when you can't find someone?"

Takeda looked back his way, Sugawara could see guilt flicker in his eyes, exchanging for a bit more surprise in Sugawara.

"Uh, well, we did, but we couldn't find them either."

"They weren't at home or work?" Daichi took one hand away, but left the other behind on Sugawara's shoulder. It was warm, and just a bit distracting. Sugawara would've addressed it if it didn't look like Takeda was going to blow up.

"Well...um... we called, and nobody was on the other end. We sent someone, there was no one home."

"Nobody home...? At either houses?"

Takeda shook his head. Sugawara felt his stomach tighten. Nobody home?

"Maybe they went on a vacation or something," Daichi's reasoning came out in a faltering tone, he could tell he was as nervous and uncertain as himself. "Just keep looking, I'm sure they'll turn up."

"Yes, you're right," Takeda nodded, pushing at his glasses. "It’s nothing too bad to worry about now. Have a good afternoon, I'll be sure to keep you updated."

"Thanks."

“Oh- and one last thing!” Takeda caught them just as the two began to turn, they stopped to look back. “There’s going to be a blizzard Thursday afternoon, if it’s too difficult, your practice might be postponed to the day after.”

“We’ve been getting quite a lot of snow lately,” Daichi commented while Sugawara hummed in agreement. Though snow should be the least of their worries now, it would be best to not ignore it. Driving or walking home after practice in a blizzard was dangerous, postponing it would probably be best, even if it would just deepen their worries if they didn’t see Kageyama and Hinata soon.


	2. everythings just coming up roses

"I'm sure it'll be fine,"

The sky was just darkening over them while they walked towards home, heavy with dreary clouds that promised another coat of snow fall. Sugawara blew over the steam of his coffee, walking alongside with Daichi who held his own. They were bundled up in their thick coats, scarves and hats. Daichi had his own pair of gloves while Sugawara kept his bare hands to have a better grip on his cup.

Sugawara couldn’t help but feel anxious. He had tried his best to enjoy his afternoon out with Daichi, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. It wasn't like Hinata and Kageyama to disappear like that. If they were going on a trip, Hinata would have been raving about it, and Kageyama would have been complaining or sulking in the very least.

Maybe the two athletes had gone off somewhere, but their entire families disappearing as well? It was hard to believe and pretty unsettling. It made him itch and want to go run off and make sure the others wouldn't disappear either. He had had the reassurance of seeing them today at practice, but what would he do if he showed up tomorrow and Tanaka was missing? Noya? Asahi? ...Daichi?

"I know, I’m just a little worried," Sugawara sighed over the lip of his cup, watching the thick water ripple with every step he took. He was overreacting on this, there was probably just a mix up over something, with their number and address. Yeah, things would probably fix itself by tomorrow. "I just worry too much, you know me."

"I do," Daichi’s gentle laugh bubbled in while Sugawara took a sip of his drink. "But that's fine. It's always good to know someone's worrying about you-" Sugawara perked, "- I'm sure our teammates are glad to have you and you're habits."

"Habits?"

"How much you worry, it might as well be," Daichi shrugged, Sugawara couldn't help but mirror that shy grin of his.

"I don't think that's the right word, but it feels like you could have a point."

"Could?"

"Could."

"Alright," Daichi rolled his eyes, chuckling as well as they came to a fork in the road. They slowed to a stop, Daichi took a few quick gulps of his drink before speaking again. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Of course. I'll see you too?"

"I'll make sure of it," Daichi's face softened, Sugawara felt himself do the same. He always seemed to know what he was worrying about, and just how to make him feel even a little better. Daichi gave a gentle pat to his shoulder, flashing him one more smile before he turned off his own way. Sugawara stood, watching him leave for a few moments before he turned as well, walking off towards his own house, his steps feeling light.

\---------

Sugawara ended up having a horrid time dragging himself out of bed that morning, it hadn’t even felt like he had slept the night. In his half awake state he had made himself breakfast and gotten dressed in a thick sweater and a thicker coat before even setting foot outside. It had only snowed lightly, but he could tell from the frost on his window and how chilly the inside of his house was that it was going to be a freezing cold day.

He gave a stale goodbye to his mother before leaving out the front door and nearly slipping down the icy front steps. Everything crunched underfoot when he walked out on to the sidewalk and started at a brisk pace on his usual route. The weather was nearly so cold that it hurt, he wanted to get in the school building as fast as he could.

He also wanted to see if Kageyama and Hinata were back, as soon as he could.

Even while speed walking, Sugawara ended up taking the same amount of time to get to the school as usual. The snow and cold slowed him down, but once the school was in sight after a swift stroll through the woods, his spirits lifted. Other students were huddling into the building and jumping out of their cars as well, frozen and sluggish on the tired Tuesday morning.

Slipping one hand out of his pocket, he pulled open the school’s front door by its freezing handle before quickly stumbling inside, giving his hand a quick shake to get the feeling back into it. Students stood in small groups around the edges of the inside waiting for the bell, mostly near heaters, while others wandered off to find their class.The brief thought to find himself a heater to cuddle up to until the bell passed through his mind, but disappeared when a familiar voice spoke his name.

“Oi, Suga!”

“Suga!”

He turned around just in time to see Daichi and Tanaka approaching, Tanaka gave an excited wave and the both of them flashed smiles. Daichi looked fresh and ready for the day, per usual, it only annoyed Sugawara a little how much of an early bird he was.

They stopped a few steps in front of him, Sugawara mirrored their grins, “Good morning.”

“Did you forget to put on a hat?” Daichi questioned as he leaned in a little, Sugawara gave a questioning hum, Tanaka leaned in as well “Your ears are pretty red.”

“I was pretty tired this morning, I think I forgot,” Sugawara admitted and Daichi gave him a sympathetic look.

“You’ll freeze your ears off in weather like this if you keep forgetting,” Tanaka announced, giving Sugawara a poke in the temple who shuddered in surprise. His face fell, however, looking on to Sugawara with worry, “Besides, that’s kind of weird and unlike you, Sugawara, are you alright? You’re usually the one beating up on me and Noya for forgetting hats.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Sugawara reassured guiltily with a few waves of his hands, “I went to bed late last night, that’s all.”

“Sugawara! You can’t do that, someone has to be the responsible one here,” Tanaka scolded with hands on his hips, Sugawara giggled at how serious the teen was taking this.

“Daichi’s much more responsible than me, Tanaka. I think we’ll be alright.”

“You haven’t seen Daichi trying to cope with the rest of us when you’re not around,” Tanaka waved a finger with a smug grin, Daichi’s brow twitched.

“I try my best, you know.”

Tanaka put his elbow up on the other teens shoulder, “I know, I try my best too Daichi, responsibility is hard.”

“Yeah…”

“Hey, but um, anyways,” Sugawara butted in while Daichi tore away his glare from Tanaka, “Have either of you gotten news on Hinata and Kageyama?”

“I haven’t,” Tanaka pulled back his arm, pushing both of his hands into his jeans pockets. “I didn’t get any calls from Takeda. Daichi?”

“I haven’t heard anything yet either,” Daichi reported sadly, Sugawara couldn’t help it when his mouth dipped into a sad frown.

“Oh… I haven’t either.”

“I’m sure he was just waiting to tell us today, why don’t we go look for him?” Daichi offered, “He should just be in his office around now, I’m sure he won’t mind us stopping by.”

“That... sounds like a good idea,” Sugawara agreed, flashing hopeful smile. Even if he hated to bug Takeda so early in the day, he was feeling too sick over this to wait. He hadn’t been so riled up over something this easily in a long time, he hated the gross feeling that it was giving him. He didn’t even understand it in the first place, since Hinata and Kageyama had only been gone a single afternoon. That hardly warranted his body rejecting itself over this mess.

Daichi was already ushering him on, however. Tanaka was left stumbling behind them as Daichi lead him through the main lobby. If they were quick enough they could stop by before first period, Sugawara would just have to hope that he would be there.

\--------

“Takeda!”

The teacher glanced over his shoulder sleepily to his name being called, watching the students gather up towards him. He looked more tired than usual and his glasses had slipped to the edge of his nose. One arm held a few binders to his chest while the other had his key in his office door. It looked as though he had just finished getting things together for his morning class, which was a usual since Takeda was known for always being at least four or five minutes late after the bell in the middle of the week.

Tanaka lead in front of the group with Daichi and Sugawara who walked just a step behind him, the three slowed once they came close and Takeda flashed them a sleepy smile.

“Hey guys, the bell should be going soon.”

“Hello mister Takeda, we just wanted to stop by and chat for a second,” Sugawara spoke up with a wave, the teacher turned himself once he finished locking up his door.

“Ah, it’s probably about yesterday, right?” He breathed while shoving his key away into his pants pocket. “Sorry to say I haven’t gotten much news on it myself.”

“No?” Daichi scuffed his heel, “Man, that’s kind of a downer. Nothing at all?”

“I handed off the issue with the school board, other than that I think they may have called the police about it.”

“The police…?” Sugawara felt dread come over at the mention of law enforcement. That meant that things had definitely gotten at least a bit more serious now. No, wait, he needed to stop jumping to these conclusions…

“Are you sure that's everything you know?” Tanaka stepped forward, his hands were still in his pockets and his head cocked back to watch Takeda down the bridge of his nose. “We should know everything, you know, we’re their teammates.”

“E-eh, I’m sure that’s it,” Takeda took a step back, hiding somewhat behind his books and using them to bump up his glasses. Tanaka wasn’t much taller than him, but anyone would rightfully get startled when an athlete pulled the threatening stance.

Daichi grabbed his teammate’s arm anyways and snapped Tanaka out of the act.

“Don’t try to bully information out of him, Tanaka, you’re working backwards,” The captain chided to Tanaka who grinned guiltily but backed off. Takeda knew they were all relatively harmless, but letting Tanaka carry on like that felt mean. Besides, Sugawara could tell that Takeda really only knew as much as they did on the subject right now.

The teacher coughed into his sleeve, bringing back their attention, “I’ll keep you guys updated, though, try not to worry too much over it already.”

“Yes sir!” Tanaka stood back up straight again, Daichi and Sugawara chuckled.

“Thank you, Takeda.”

\--------

Classes after that were a blur to him, since he had been too distracted to pay much attention. Luckily he had gotten a text from Daichi - who he held back on scolding from sending it to him during class- that everyone else had arrived that day just fine. That was enough to tie over his nerves until lunch came around.

Daichi, Sugawara, and Asahi were sitting at the end of a long lunch table, Sugawara watched the snow cling to the window a few feet off. Tanaka and Noya had went down the hall to go harass the vending machine and had thankfully left Asahi out of it this time. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi had made an appearance once a little while ago, which Sugawara was relieved to see.

Everyone was accounted for except Hinata and Kageyama. Even if the school and police apparently were looking into it, it left an uneasy feeling between all of them.

Asahi had his phone under one hand and half a sandwich in the other, busying himself with the device soundlessly while he ate. He wore a huge, heavy, dark red sweater that he still looked cold in. Daichi was chewing on the end of a pen while reading over his own paper, he wore that same slightly perplexed look he always did when proof reading his own work to match his black uniform coat. Sugawara had already finished eating, and the window was hardly helping him keep his mind away from his worrying.

Watching Daichi instead now, he sniffed, “Daichi, if you’re hungry you could have gone with Noya and Tanaka.”

“Hm?” His head popped back up quickly, the pen still stuck between his teeth when he looked to Sugawara. Sugawara reached out and took it by the other end, Daichi let him take it with an embarrassed look.

“You’ve been eating it since lunch started.”

“Sorry, this paper’s not going to correct itself though,” Daichi smirked and tapped the papers together on the table, Sugawara leaned in to peek at them.

“What class?”

“History.”

“Oh, it can’t be that hard then.”

“Says you,” Daichi muttered with his brows furrowing to meeting in the middle again. Sugawara reached a hand over and easily slipped the small pile over to himself, Daichi’s face flickering to surprise.

“Hey-”

“I’ll help you out with it before you make a permanent wrinkle between your eyebrows,” Sugawara announced, letting the pen slip down into his grip and giving it a little shake. Daichi touched his forehead with a blink, giving in with a smile and a sigh.

“Alright, if you want to.”

“It’s not that long, it’ll give me something to do,” Sugawara reassured while he plucked up the first page, leaning in to read over it. Littered about the page were scribbled out words and things underlined, Sugawara set it back down and leaned over it instead. He didn’t read well from afar, but he knew he probably looked dumb holding the paper up so close to his face.

“Sugawara, I’m not sure how you even read that,” Asahi mumbled from across the table, looking up to him. “Daichi’s hand writing is…a little rough.”

“I’ve been reading it for years, that’s how,” Sugawara muttered, doing some motions with his fingers. “It’s like decoding hieroglyphics.”

Daichi blinked, “Is it really that bad?”

“N-no- uh...maybe a little,” Asahi admitted with a guilty smile, Daichi glanced at his own paper that Sugawara began to mark on with his perplexed look coming back.

“You type it up anyways, so it’s never an issue,” Sugawara excused as he moved to the next page.

“That’s not the problem…” Daichi sighed, scratching the bridge of his nose, “I think I just found out why no one listens to the notes I leave.”

“Except for Sugawara,” Asahi pointed out, pushing the last piece of his sandwich into his mouth.

“That’s what’s important anyways, I’m sure the others will learn,” Sugawara waved the chewed end of the pen a moment while Daichi gave a solemn shake of his head.

“I’ll work on it more later, it’s only a little embarrassing-”

“Daichi!”

All three of them at the table shuddered when a sudden battle cry sounded through the lunch room, Asahi’s hand flying up to his mouth and then to his to his throat while Sugawara’s head flicked up and Daichi near had a heart attack at his side.

Noya and Tanaka came bustling in, heads around the lunch room turned and stared in shock as the two volleyball players came crashing through and over to the table. They must have run all the way from down the hallway to where they were from their quick breaths and red faces, stopping just short of knocking into the table while Asahi tried to stop choking on his food.

“Daichi!”

“W-what?!”

“You two are going to kill someone running like that one day,” Sugawara breathed, a hand up to his chest while he tried to quell his heart from beating so hard. The two looked too riled up to care, however, Noya slapped his phone down on the table in between the three of them. Hesitantly, Sugawara and Daichi leaned in, Asahi was still left in shock and trying to catch his breath after finally swallowing his mouthful.

“Kageyama! You skipped practice?”

“Don’t be angry though but where are you and Hinata?”

“Kageyama?”

The time changed to a day passing, before a few new messages came up.

“Adfgvcc.”

“DFg.”

“Hi.”

Sugawara stared a moment before he snatched up the phone in a split second, the others looked on in surprise as he tapped on the small keyboard.

“Kageyama this is Sugawara, where are you?”

“I knew he they were probably just out sick or something,” Noya declared, hands on his hips with a triumphant look.

“Why’d he message you back first though? Of all people…”

“Hey! It’s not like he would usually message you back either!” Noya snapped back to Tanaka who scratched his head, Sugawara waiting impatiently, but it didn’t seem like another text was coming through.

“Kageyama?”

“Something’s weird,” Daichi mumbled, he leaned in at Sugawara’s side to read the messages. “It’s just letters and then a hi?”

“Don’t you guys usually type like that?” Sugawara questioned while he looked back up to the two boys, Tanaka shrugged.

“No, not really.”

Sugawara stood up abruptly, scaring the group again, “We have to go show Takeda.”

“Wait Sugawara you can’t just run off with my phone!”

Sugawara was already up and running, Daichi following as he went jogging out of the lunch room.

\---------

Sadly, Noya never got his phone back. Once they showed Takeda, he was quick to take it and disappear off again into his office. Sugawara and Daichi had tried to question him further on the matter, but he was gone faster than they could stop him. It was painfully obvious that he was trying his hardest to hold information back from them, he was doing a good job of it too.

Sugawara found himself caught up in thought again as he walked home next to Daichi, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets and his hood pulled up. The morning's chill had only worsened since the day moved on, Sugawara regretted forgetting his hat that morning even more. Watching his sneakers kick up snow as they walked the frosted sidewalk, it took him a minute to realize Daichi was trying to get his attention.

“Sugawara?”

“Hm?” His head flicked up quickly, Daichi’s gloved hand retracted from hovering over his shoulder.

“I was wondering if you were doing alright? You’re a little spaced out.”

“Sorry, it’s been a long day,” Sugawara apologized softly, Daichi flashed him another sympathetic look.

“You’re going to worry yourself sick, you know.”

“It’s not like I’m trying,” Sugawara sighed in defeat, letting his shoulders sag. “Two of our teammates are missing, how could I not be tearing out my own hair?”

“I’m really worried about them too, but beating yourself up over it won’t help them any,” Daichi explained in a soft tone, Sugawara let his words bleed away the tension in his body. Daichi was right, per usual, and now he was feeling guilty; the whole thing felt foolish and selfish, now, worrying himself sick over something that hadn’t escalated. Hell, he didn’t know why he was letting himself get like this, something must have came on to him all of a sudden.

“You’re right...sorry about that, I’ll try to be a bit more positive,” Sugawara offered up a smile that Daichi returned with a cluck of his tongue, shaking his head.

“You don’t have to apologize, I was worried for you, that's all.”

“I don’t want to make you worry more than you should!” Sugawara pouted out his bottom lip, feeling it crack a little in the cold air to his dismay; Winter really wasn’t his season, he had to admit. Daichi gave his shoulder a little bump with his own, making Sugawara wobble.

“There’s no controlling that now, is there? Why don’t we focus on tomorrow, I’m sure after that text that we’ll have the two turning up tomorrow morning.”

“Well, I’ll try my best,” Sugawara grinned and gave him a little bump back, the other teen chuckled with dimples pushing up his cheeks. He always knew what to say, and what was on his mind, it was astounding how Daichi could turn his day around.


	3. We all make shitty mistakes guys

"Hey!" Sugawara glanced over his shoulder to the rapid footsteps approaching, just in time to see Daichi come stumbling up beside him through the thin layer of crusting snow. He smiled while panting, his face washed in the bright morning light while Sugawara blinked to him.

"What are you doing here?"

"I decided to walk this way, the snow plow plowed snow into my usual root," Daichi's breath solidified in front of him, fogging over his smile while Sugawara shook his head. He was on his way to school, usually the two of them met up at the school because of where their houses were situated, so it was surprising (but nice, he guessed) to see Daichi earlier in the morning.

His cheeks were flushed pink and he looked tired, it was no surprise he probably had to jog through the foot of snow that had come down over night to get over here in time to see him. Sugawara patted the boy's shoulder as his face turned to an embarrassed one, seeing that Sugawara had found him out.

"The plows aren't too nice this year, are they?"

"Not to the walkers," Daichi shrugged, looking forward again while he steadied his breathing. "The roads are clear, but I don't think they actually care where they're putting all this snow."

"I'm sure things will clear up, other people will complain soon enough about the covered up sidewalks," Sugawara pushed his bag up with a little jump, holding on to the straps. "It's exercise, anyways. Have... Have you gotten any word from Takeda?"

"Not yet, I'm sure he'll speak with us today," Daichi nodded, still keeping a cheery look, even if Sugawara's question showed he still held his anxieties. It had made him restless last night- weird enough, he thought he would be able to forget it at least somewhat but it still held him- so he was eager to hear any news today.

"We'll just keep an eye out. Practice is again on Thursday, right?"

"Yup," Daichi shoved his hands back into his pockets. His hat was pulled over his ears with the tips sticking out, reddened from the cold. Sugawara could tell his lips were starting to chap from the weather. "Coach is stopping by, remember?"

"Yeah..." Sugawara nodded, looking off to his feet. Would he still be coming if Hinata and Kageyama didn't show up? He would be in the very least disappointed, they were the base of this next training sessions. It would solidify the devastation of their disappearance if they weren't there by tomorrow...Sugawara really hated talking about it like this had already happened. Yet he had been feeling strange, like it really had already happened. It made him a bit sick.

Trees started to get thicker as their walk way veered into the woods. The path they usually took had thankfully been plowed, the school was just five minutes away. Daichi patted his back reassuringly.

"I did, however, get a text from Tanaka last night. It was late, goodness I can't believe he was up to that hour, I only saw it in the morning. But The grant for a new net went through."

"Really?" Sugawara's face instantly brightened. "That's great news! I didn't think it would!"

"Ukai Isn't too good of a writer, but you did check it and rewrite it for him, so we've got you to thank."

"Aw, Daichi, it was nothing, really. You helped out too, you know."

"Me? I'm not that great at writing and stuff, I only checked for spelling mistakes."

"Which is just as good!" Suga grinned back, "We'll get the new net in for next week now probably, so now we...can...uh," Sugawara and Daichi both stopped, glancing about. There was a strange, dull noise coming from somewhere. It sounded like a cat giving off shrills mewls, but strangely different and too evident to ignore. Daichi seemed to hear it too at least, Sugawara's hand dropped from his shoulder while he looked around. The woods were usually the quietest part of their walk, after all it was much further off from the main road and they came early enough that the other students were usually still at home.

“Do you...do you hear that?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“I have no idea…” Daichi muttered back, Sugawara wandered a few steps out and Daichi followed him swiftly. They walked on a few more paces, the sound only got louder as they strolled with slow steps.

Sugawara pinpointed where the source was coming from before the other teen, walking off towards it with Daichi chasing his heels. He took big steps through the snow bank, stepping over the drift that had been made by the plow. What greeted his eyes once he made it over made both him and Daichi freeze.

Red, bushy hair curled around the small head it sat on top of. Really small. The child looked to be only a toddler, maybe only around three or four years old, Sugawara couldn’t quite tell. He was sitting in the snow, so it came up to about his waist, but it had collapsed around him so he was only buried about to his knees. He was definitely not in the clothing for the weather, only a t-shirt and what looked to be a pair of pajama shorts. His face was red and tear soaked, his little body shivering while he sobbed.

The second his gaze caught Sugawara's, the teen was trampling through the snow, Daichi was left behind in a daze while Sugawara ran and stumbled. The child's arms stretched out to him as he got closer, Sugawara knelt down in the snow.

"Oh my goodness! What are you doing out here? It's too cold for you to be alone!" The child hiccupped and sniffled, unable to respond through his own blubbering while Sugawara went on stripping off his jacket. Sugawara wrapped it around the boy quickly as Daichi started over, trodding in the footprints left behind. Sugawara picked the child out of the snow and into his lap, he clung right to Sugawara. His little knees and legs were red, he wore only soaked socks without shoes.

"Suga-"

"We have to get him some help," Sugawara announced just as quickly as he picked the bundle up. The sniffling child's crying had stopped though he still seemed distressed. "He's shivering, and he's probably sick, too-"

"Sugawara, look at him!" Daichi bent beside him, he held the boy in gentle arms. Sugawara looked down to him, tear filled eyes closing while nuzzled closer into Sugawara's warmth. "It's...It's Hinata!"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Sugawara pushed himself up to a stand, staggering some as he held the child. "This is probably his sibling- he said he had one, right? Something must have happened to them!"

"He has a sister," Daichi pushed himself up as well, "But she's in middle school."

"A cousin, maybe. We have to call the police or something," Sugawara bounced the bundled up child in his arm with a small grunt of effort- he was small, but still had the weight of a healthy toddler- turning back towards the path. "We'll go to the school."

"It's- well, come on then, let's go, quickly," Daichi ushered as they began to trample off back towards the path, Daichi held one of Sugawara’s arms to help guide him. Sugawara looked down to the little cold face still peeking up at him: brown eyes, pudgy face, red curls. It looked just like him. Yet this child was too young to actually be Hinata, It must have been a coincidence. There weren't many redheads around Japan, but this definitely couldn’t be Hinata. That was impossible.

\----------------

Waiting outside the nurse's office was nerve wracking. He was pretty sure one of the teachers there was going to tell him he could go to class and come back later, but it only took one look at him and they said it was okay for him to wait outside. Daichi was with him, he refused to leave if Sugawara wasn't going to, so the both of them were stuck sitting in hard plastic chairs a teacher had so nicely brought out for them

The only relieving aspect was that he could hear giggling every once in awhile, a nurse cooing and some babbling. It hadn't taken long for them to get the young boy out of his upset state, though they were checking him now because he had been left out in the cold and there was a chance he could be hurt or sick.

Just as he felt knuckled brushing his own of the hand that dangled at his side, the nurses office door opened. The two glanced up and a nurse poked her head out, smiling to the two boys. It was a different nurse than they usually had, it must be some sort of substitute. They knew the other nurse pretty well, they visited her too often with Volleyball related injuries, they knew her by her first name by now.

"You can come in now!"

"He's okay?"

Sugawara and Daichi stood while the nurse stepped out into the hall.

"Yes, he might have a bit of a cold but surprisingly he's alright. He-"

"Suga?"

The three jumped to the voice inside, tiny and curious. Yet instantly, Sugawara's heart melted. He stepped briskly around the nurse to get to the doorway, the thick scent of antibiotics assaulting his senses but his mind pushed it to the back when he saw the boy. He was sitting on the medical bench just across the room with an orange blanket nearly as bright as his hair and a grinning face.

"Suga!"

"You're okay!" Sugawara beamed as he came trotting into the room and stopped in front of the child who bounced happily just from seeing him. Daichi and the nurse came in after him, the door squealing shut.

"Yeah! I'm okay!"

"The nurse must have taken good care of you," Sugawara grinned while the boy nodded promptly, reaching out for him. Sugawara leaned in and accepted the small boys hug, the smile on his face uncontrollable. He didn't understand why this child made him so happy, or the strong urge he had to just pick him up and bring him home, but he could barely argue with such a cute face looking at him. Daichi shifted as he watched at the nurse's side, squinting and scratching the back of his neck.

"Suga, you really are great with kids."

"Aw, this little guys just really happy, not that hard to deal with," Sugawara grinned as he was released, straightening up some while the redhead watched him. Sugawara glanced his way, though the nurse looked like she was awestruck with how much compassion was between them, Daichi looked skeptical and confused. "Is something wrong?"

"I... when did you tell him your name?"

"Huh?" Sugawara stared for a moment before glancing down to the toddler, then back to Daichi. "He must have heard it when we were picking him up before."

"..."

Daichi stared as the boy laughed and Sugawara went on with him, muttering in a higher pitched tone while the nurse approached Daichi this time.

"You two know him...?"

"We found him just outside the school yard in the woods, sitting in the snow. I have no idea why he's so friendly with Suga already..."

"In the woods?" The nurse looked worriedly towards the child before glancing back. "Well, it doesn't look like anyone hurt him. Maybe he was lost..."

"Did you get his name?"

"He said it was Hinata Shouyou."

Even while Sugawara was slightly distracted, he felt his stomach sink. Daichi fell silent while the boy looked to the nurse, curious as to why she said his name. Hinata Shouyou. That was him. There was no excusing it now, the boy looked just like him, shared his name... this was either a pretty elaborate prank- a terribly mean one at that- or some weird scary magic going on, which Sugawara really didn’t want to believe.

He dared to glance up to Daichi again, he held the same confused look at himself. Sugawara could only shrug slowly, the nurse looked between them.

“I’ve tried talking with him before, but he won’t tell me where his folks are,” The nurse continued with a little sigh, hands finding themselves to her hips with a dampened look on her face, “I’m afraid he might be something other than “lost”.”

Quickly, Daichi turned to her, “What do you mean by that?”

“Lots of kids have been popping up around Japan recently, especially the little ones,” She explained in a lower tone, Sugawara did his best to keep Hinata half occupied while still listening to her, though she had already stolen his attention. “Job cutting’s been tough, some parents just can’t keep support them anymore.”

“That’s terrible!” Sugawara straightened a bit to watch her but kept a hand to Hinata who played with his fingers curiously. “I can’t believe some people would do this…”

“Sadly, it’s pretty true. Isn’t this the kind of stuff you guys should be learning about in your global history classes?”

“I have it this semester,” Daichi confirmed with a solid nod. “It’s sad to think about.”

“Well, at least they've got plenty of centers over in america for poor little guys like him,” She breathed with a bit more of a hopeful smile. “If they can’t find his parent’s, he’s got somewhere else to go.”

America.

“He’s got a bit of a fever, but nothing’s broken,” The nurse went on a moment before looking to the two students. Sugawara’s face had dropped again, he felt his breath caught in his throat, Daichi stood rigid. "...Is something wrong...?"

"Um. No. It's fine, I actually know this little guy though!" Sugawara stood back up straight while he cleared his throat. "He's the cousin of a friend of mine- I'll bring him back home!"

"Uh... The police have already been called," Daichi and Sugawara looked as the nurse spoke up, feeling the panic start to brew as things connected. Crap. Like hell the police would believe that this was Hinata. If they showed up and took him... he had no family to go back to. What if they did put him in an orphanage? All the way over in America? Then he’d really be gone. Just thinking about it put terror through him, he held Hinata’s hand a little tighter who glanced up to him.

Daichi seemed to get the same idea, communicating it just through one look and quickly shaking his head to the nurse.

"No, no, I think it's okay! Just call them back and tell them things have fixed itself, we'll take him back home-"

The two teens jumped when Hinata sneezed into his arm, his small body jerked.

"Boys, it's okay. He's already sick from the weather, he could use the drive anyways-"

"It's alright! We've got it!" Sugawara pushed his hands under the Hinata’s arms as the boy tried to recover from his sneeze, half in a daze. He lifted him off the bench and put him on his feet. The boy was incredibly short, Sugawara hadn't been around such small children in a long while, it felt odd. Daichi stepped up quickly to his side.

"Yup! We've got this all under control!"

"You two, I understand you want to help, but really-"

"Come on, Hinata," The redhead was looking about in curious confusion, unsure of what was really happening. "Hinata, let's go for a walk!"

"A walk...?"

"Please, just wait until the officer's get here-"

"Or how about a piggy back ride? Daichi, let's go!"

"Hey!"

Sugawara was backing up with him now as Daichi ran to his side, the nurse was gaining on them. Hinata looked alarmed now but Sugawara picked him up under his arms again, setting him on Daichi's back. Hinata held on to Daichi on what almost look like instinct, his arms and legs twining around the teen’s middle, then the two bolted. The nurse tried to intercept, but the years they dedicated to volleyball weren't for nothing. They easily sprinted past her into the hall, leaving her to shout after them.

Sugawara had mixed feelings of exhilaration and worry- they were really breaking the rules now. The police were involved! But they needed to figure out what was happening, they couldn't risk letting Hinata get taken away, and Sugawara doubted the police would take “magic” into consideration for this incident.

Speaking of the boy, he was laughing and squealing on the bumpy ride, holding on to Daichi's thick shoulders as they ran down the hall full speed. Sugawara couldn't help but smile at this as he kept pace a foot behind Daichi to watch Hinata's back, the mischievous feeling of this impulsive act sending shivers down his spine.

"Hey! You two!"

This one wasn't the light feminine voice of the nurse. Sugawara glanced over his shoulder just a moment to see two officers just turning the corner at the other end of the hall. They were far, but they definitely saw them making way with the child and the nurse calling after them.

Two full grown man cops. Unlike the nurse, they were trained to run pretty fast, and we're definitely planning on using this skill now that they began to chase the two. Sugawara looked back to Daichi, putting a hand on Hinata's back to keep him steady as they ducked around a corner. A teacher looked out of his classroom, while other doors quickly shut. Now the sinking feeling was back.

"Stop!"

"Daichi, that way!" Sugawara quickly gave a tug to his sleeve and they dove into a sharp right, stumbling down the hallway towards back doors. It was the doors on the way to the gym where they practiced. They'd be able to get back to the woods from there, and have a greater chance of losing their pursuers.

Sugawara spotted a cart outside a shut classroom, stacked with old, dirty textbooks. Daichi ran right past it, but Sugawara stopped just a second and gave it a hearty tug. He’d apologize to the teacher later, but he needed it now. The book cart came tumbling down, sprawling books and it’s heavy build across the hall. He immediately turned and went on sprinting, Daichi had stopped a few meters ahead but kept going when he saw him coming.

Heavy footsteps crashed after them, shoes squeaked over the waxed floors when the cops saw the barricade. Sugawara's heart was battered his rib cage, his breaths quick while they approached the doors. They were so close! The exhilaration had long since faded away, the fear and panic set in. How tight his chest was and how it was making it hard to breath was a new sensation that only made it worse.

Then, something hit.

It wasn't like the volleyball that hit him in the head the day before, this was aimed much lower, hitting him in the back of the knee. A book, and a heavy one. He hardly had a second to think of the pain it gave him before his legs swizzled and he fell heavily, rolling onto his side.

"Suga!"

Daichi skidded to a halt but Sugawara could hardly notice. A gasping cry of pain escaped his throat, his leg felt like it was on fire. His hands were already grasping at his pulled up knee, the numbing pain in his ankle burned, a wave of dizziness washed over him. He ground his teeth together, tears pricked the corners of his eyes.

"Go!" Sugawara rasped, Daichi stalled with a look of horror. “J-just go! Don’t you dare make this go to waste!” Sugawara had to strain not to curse, Daichi began to uncertainly start backing up, fear in his eyes while Hinata looked over his head. Daichi knew well that if he stayed, Sugawara would be more angry at him for jeopardizing Hinata's safety instead of leaving and letting him get thrown to the dogs. Just as he saw Daichi's back turn again he tried to put weight on his leg, a bolt of pain cracked through his body, a yelp burst from his throat again.

The back doors opened, Daichi looked back again. He looked on the edge of tears, though Sugawara could hardly register it through the pain. The tears ran over his cheeks, his lips tightened.

"Go!"

A hand grabbed his shoulder while another cop sped past them, the doors shut. Daichi was gone, Sugawara felt somewhat relieved, even if someone was now grabbing him quite roughly and his legs twisted again. The cop tried to force him to the floor but he didn't have to, Sugawara already crumpled on to his chest, wheezing and gasping in his pain. His head felt light, darkness rimmed his vision while he was jostled.

"Suga!"

In unison, he heard two familiar voices call out as a door open, and then a teacher yelling after them. Tanaka and Noya, two doors down, had spotted him in the hallway. It was no surprise that if they heard a ruckus they'd be the first to jump and see what is was, even if their teacher told them to stay put. The officers was already grabbing his hands though, the clanging of handcuffs made his heart jump to his throat.

"Let him go!"

The weight was lifted, and tangle of limbs landed beside him with a heavy thud. The officer scrambled, Tanaka and Noya were trying to restrain him while Sugawara stared on in shock. If this was any other situation, Sugawara would have been so terribly angry with the two. Hell, he was still left floundering at the thought that they would readily take down a police officer.

"Run Suga!" Noya called over the officer's barking commands.

"Go! I don't know what you did, but buddies look out for buddies!" Tanaka struggled with an arm, sitting on top of the officer before disappearing under him. Sugawara scrambled about, using his other leg to get himself up and one hand on the wall. He began to limp and jump away, his breath caught raggedly in his throat, voices calling after him.

"Stop! Come back!"

"Go Suga! Go!"

Pain shot up his leg again as he just broke into a run. Each step was dizzying, but he managed to burst through the back doors. Daichi and the other cop were nowhere to be seen, but thankfully the snow had left behind footprints. He boosted himself over the rail before he staggered on through the snow, deep footprints following him. He tried to lift the leg as much as he could, cursing his horrid luck.

However, Daichi had to be up ahead. Sugawara just had to hope that he would be able to find him unharmed. This had all escalated so quickly, his mind was buzzing, he put all his focus on making the next step and listening for anyone tailing him.


	4. player 4 enters the game

It was at least an hour later until he found himself on the right track.

He had followed the trail in the snow, deciphered among which footprints were the police officer’s and which ones were Daichi’s. Half way he had found himself a hiding spot in a big snowy bush and hid, letting the other officer that had been chasing him get lost before he kept going.

He'd followed the tracks further, found himself back on the woods path they took to school, and headed where he knew Daichi would probably go; his house.

Daichi's parents would be out until much later, they got home from work around nine or ten o’clock. So, a brief stop there before the police were sent there to look would be safe. Sugawara was shivering at this time, as well, since his coat had been used to wrap Hinata up and he hadn't had the chance to get it back. This also meant his phone was stuck useless in the pocket, he just hoped that Daichi hadn't tried texting him where he was, or else their hiding spot would be found even faster.

Three hundred times over while trekking through the snow, he’d cursed himself and wished he had someone around to give him a good punch to the stomach for being an idiot. There could have been a million better ways to go about all this. Maybe use his words, or be a bit more casual, even though both other plans did not seem as effective. Running away like a wild animal and getting himself injured was not too good of a plan either, his teammate's decision making skills must have started to rub off on him, as mean as it sounded.

In his exhausted and pained state, he hadn't even heard the footsteps behind him, crunching through the snow. Quick, close together, and gaining on him. Yet they still kept their distance.

Sugawara breathed heavily, his pace had slowed to a jerking limp. His ankle felt swollen and sore, the run had worsened whatever injury he had gotten. If the police officer came after him again, he'd probably have to put up his hands and ask them to drag him back.

The trees were just beginning to thin when he finally noticed them, his own steps slowed to a halt and the ones behind him doing the same.

This was it. He was caught, and would be in much more trouble for resisting arrest. The least he could do now was make sure that he didn't lead whoever it was to Daichi's house, if he could keep Hinata and Daichi safe for just a bit longer, he would be happy.

"Koushi Sugawara?”

He did his best to turn around for them, nearly tripping over his own feet. The two forms jumped when he jerked suddenly, they calmed as quick as he did when they spotted no weapon. Two police officers, dressed in thick coats now and standing firm. They stared him down with the look of pity someone would give a kicked dog, Sugawara could only nervously smile back to it and feel jealous for their warm coats.

“S-s...sorry.”

\------------

“Where did he go?”

“I really, really don’t know.”

“You can’t hide this from us, you two are putting an innocent child in danger.”

Sugawara’s shoulders slumped, he held his hands in his lap. The walk back to the police cruiser had been embarrassing. They had had to drive the car around to the closest entrance and half carry him out in handcuffs. Sugawara had just been lucky that he had only seen strangers around watching him, even if he had never felt as much guilt and shame in his entire life.

It didn't help any that the room they were holding him in was freezing cold. One of the two officers in front of him had told him that they had already called his parents. The only lucky thing about this situation was that since the teacher was a sub, they were having trouble putting a name to Daichi’s face, so his parents still hadn’t been called.

That wouldn’t stop them from bombarding him with questions, though. They held him under the pretense that they would treat his ankle when he told them who Daichi was and where he went, also what he wanted with Hinata. Sugawara stuck to his story, but the officers obviously weren’t buying it.

“We haven’t found a single record on any child name Hina Shoto,” The other officer continued on, flipping through her thin stack of papers. Sugawara had changed the name as well, since he didn’t need them making the connection with Hinata and his missing parents. Sugawara could feel the hole being dug for him now with all these lies, sitting deep in his stomach, but he could never put the others in any more danger.

“That’s him, though. He’s The cousin of Hina Reiki, in a different school district.”

“We haven’t found anything on him, either.”

“That’s who it is, though. That’s...that’s probably where he went, too.”

“He who?”

“T...Tsukiguchi...Jin.”

Damn, coming up with names on spot weren’t his forte. He let the guilt take over again, he said it now he had to roll with it. His parents would be so, so terribly disappointed with him, he was already disappointed in himself. Not to mention utterly terrified, but the mellow dizzying pain kept him a little less than aware.

“Tsukiguchi Jin?”

“He’s not on the team,” Sugawara explained, his thumbs poking together in his lap. “He’s...okay, I’ll tell you,” Sugawara leaned in a little, a head ache made his stomach turn. He could really use an advil around now, maybe if he made up some sob story they’d let him go faster. “But you really can’t tell my folks.”

“We can’t promise anything like that.”

“I can’t tell you then,” Sugawara dramatized as he sat back, crossing his arms. The police looked between each other a moment before looking back.

“Is this information important?”

“How would I know? It might tell you where he is, but even then, I’m not even sure.”

“Tell us.”

“...” Sugawara poked his chin. He’s made a big deal of it now, if he said study buddy they might just slap him, Sugawara couldn’t blame them. “Okay I’ll tell you.”

The woman with the papers rolled her eyes, the man tapped his finger impatiently.

“Me and Jin have been together since the sixth grade, we’ve always wanted a kid of our own, how could we pass up this opportunity?” Sugawara shrugged his hands up, fidgeting nervously while the cops stared in shock. The drunken state the pain put him in let the words slip out easily, but it didn’t make it any less painfully awkward to listen to himself, “Of course we can’t have our own kid because- yknow! And Reiki probably wouldn’t have cared if we stole his cousin into our family, he doesn’t care about a lot. Silly guy, really. But my goodness this has gotten to be such a big mess!”

The cops stared a moment longer. Sugawara felt really, really tired. The woman slid her papers back together, the man beside her let out a long breath.

“We’re going to go verify those facts, we’ll be back soon. If you’re parent’s show up, expect them to come see you.”

“Okay- just, uh, don’t tell them about the relationship thing, if that’s fine. I mean I can take whatever else, but being disowned…”

“Don’t worry about it, kid,” The man stood, smoothing down his pants. “You’ve got enough coming for you already.”

The two cops stepped out of the interrogation room, Sugawara watched them through the heavy window on the door while they locked him in. With a new found rock of guilt sitting on his back, he wished the ground would just swallow him up already.

Then he bounced a little.

“W-wait! Aren’t you going to help me with…?” He pulled up his knee, but the two officers were gone. Sugawara let his shoulders drop again, he’d have to suffer for a while longer.

\-----------

His parents were the least bit pleased with him when they finally showed up. They didn’t look angry, just extremely disappointed, which hurt. They had been in disbelief at first apparently, they wouldn’t listen to what the police had to say until they had the evidence of Sugawara sitting in the holding room. That made the sting a bit less harsh, since his parents had some sort of belief in him, but now the lying to save the others wouldn’t work anymore.

“It was Daichi, wasn’t it?”

“No, he’s a good kid, you know that.”

“You’re also a good kid, and I don’t really know why you would do this,” His mother's cross tone made him want to curl into himself. He was forced to sit while they stood and spoke to him; He had tried to stumble up to a stand to meet them, but couldn’t hold it. His parents said nothing about it.

“Why did you do it?”

“...”

“Please, this is so unlike you Koushi,” His father spoke softly, Sugawara couldn’t meet his eyes anymore. “If you don’t lie to them, whatever punishment they have won’t be as bad. It’s for the better, come on.”

“I can’t, but I’m doing this for a good reason! I promise-”

“What reason?” His father’s voice rose, Sugawara had to hold back from recoiling. The police officer outside the window watched carefully, Sugawara didn’t want to look at him either.

“An important one, one that I don’t even really understand now.”

“Sugawara, dear, we can help you. The police can help you. Just tell us what’s going on,” His mother spoke gently back to his own small voice, pity catching her eyes. Sugawara had to hold his own arms to not start shaking. He felt like he could puke. He said nothing.

“...They’re going to keep you here until you tell them the truth,” His mother’s tone turned bitter, Sugawara kept a hard watch at his right knee. “This will all go on your record, the school doesn't know if they can keep you on the volleyball team anymore.”

He swallowed hard, his teeth clamped tight. All the more reason they couldn’t know it was Daichi, he wasn’t ruining both of their records when this was just his idea.

“Please just do the right thing, Koushi.”

\------------

Left in the empty, cold room, Sugawara could hear the wind brushing the buildings sides outside. There weren't any windows other than the one on the door, so he couldn’t tell what the weather was like otherwise. Then, the memory popped back in; Takeda had warned them about the blizzard coming. Sugawara hoped quietly that Daichi and Hinata had gotten home safely, all of them had had enough freezing today.

He glanced up from his lap again when he heard the door handle jiggle, catching him by surprise. He had nearly fallen asleep, which would have been a blessing, even in the hard chair and metal table. They had left him with his hands out of the cuffs for the time being, maybe if he had not been so miserable he would have felt a bit better.

The single light overhead flickered just as the door opened, the police officer from outside pushing it with one hand.

“Stay where you are,” The officer instructed sharply, Sugawara watched as a smaller form came stepping up beside him. It looked to be a child wrapped in a flannel blanket, Sugawara felt his heart leap into his throat. Had they caught Hinata and Daichi already?

“Suga?”

“H…” Sugawara stopped himself. That wasn’t Hinata, but he could recognise that stare anywhere. His soft brunette hair looked freshly washed and dried, a bandaid pasted on his little cheek while he stared in from the doorway. Kageyama was only up to the officers knee, keeping a foot away between himself and the man. He looked just as surprised as he was to see him there, Sugawara felt a brick wall of emotion hit him.

He hadn’t even thought of where Kageyama could have been!

It should have been his first reaction to think where the second one could have been, Kageyama and Hinata had both been missing after all. He had been so caught up in saving Hinata that he had nearly forgotten about him. Or more likely, completely forgotten.

“You do recognise this man?”

Kageyama didn’t even seem to bother to look up to the officer, keeping his eyes pinned on Sugawara. Slowly, distress was seeping into his gaze, Sugawara offered him a nervous smile. It was weird seeing him show any sort of emotion, but it would be bad if Kageyama said he did right now. He didn’t know what the police were up to, but working against them was the only thing he could do to stall further.

“Who is this?”

“He was in the middle of answering me.”

“But...this isn’t the guy I took.”

“Shut up,” The officer barked, Kageyama flinched.

“Don’t yell right next to a child!” Sugawara scolded in a soft voice, the officer’s brow twitched, uncertain what to do. Caught in his second of confusion, Kageyama took the opportunity to come scurrying into the room.

“Hey- get back here!”

Even Sugawara was surprised when Kageyama came running up to him, skidding a little and landing against his knee. The child picked himself up quickly, his little hands holding onto Sugawara’s good leg.

“S-Suga, what happened to you? Why are they keeping you here?”

“I said stay away from him,“ The police officer growled as he came stomping to them, Kageyama scrambled behind his chair while Sugawara held up his hands in defence.

“Hey, you’re scaring him!”

“He’s not supposed to be in here-!”

“Who hurt you, Suga?”

“Stop-”

Whatever else could be said didn’t register since the lights suddenly went out. All three of them stopped a moment as sounds of concern from people came muffled from other rooms, the whole place a pitch black.

“Hey- what the hell?”

“The lights went out…” Sugawara muttered, glancing about himself blindly. He shuddered when tiny hands grasped his arm, feeling a small head lean up against him. It clicked and seemed obvious once he realized the situation; A big stranger was yelling at the child and suddenly the lights were out, Kageyama was probably terrified.

“Shit, what’s going on out there?” The police officer called out from beside Sugawara, he could feel his hand brush past him and land on the table. The cop was looking for some part of him to hold onto, Sugawara shrugged away.

He didn’t take a second longer to think on it. Slowly bringing himself to a stand, he kept his eyes pinned on the officer’s shadowed form in front of him, barely visible in the dim light. He nearly fell over as numb pain grabbed his ankle like an icy claw, but little hands grabbed his side; Kageyama was sticking to him like glue and seemed to get the idea fast.

“Sugawara stay put, there must have been an accident from the blizzard- Sugawara!? Shit the door-!”

The two of them went slinking off quickly, Kageyama guided him along to stay in the shadows. The officer stomped and floundered about yelling while the two of them slipped through the door without a word. The only noise that Sugawara could hear was his heart pounding in his ears, fear making his limbs stiff as he followed Kageyama. The boy seemed to know where he was going, and since Sugawara had no other choice, he put his faith in him.

They were out into the main foyer again, pressed close against a wall while two cops went speeding past down the hall where they came from, towards the source of the yelling; they hadn’t spotted them.

“Shit! Is that Ron out there?” An officer hissed with his face pressed against the door, hands cupped near his face while looking through the glass. The snow blew against it roughly, the room was freezing cold, just like his holding room. He could only imagine how much colder it was outside.

Kageyama had stopped and the two of them watched as the officer from behind the front desk came stumbling out; a shorter woman with concern coming in flashes in the dim light from outside. The tall male officer fumbled with keys on his belt, going for the lock.

“Wait- Haru we’re not supposed to open the doors under lock down!”

“His car can catch fire any second out there, like hell I'm just going to sit and wait for that to happen!” The officer barked obviously more harshly than he intended, the other officer stepping back with a half panicked expression. Sugawara could see it now, squinting through the dim light and out the windows. Outside, a telephone pole was across the lawn of the building, crushing the front of a cruiser and another at its base, the front windshield smashed.

One of the glass doors swung open and the officer dashed out, leaving the woman to catch the door and yell after him.

“Haru! Get back here!”

It was now or never.

Sugawara bent and easily picked up Kageyama under the arms. He gave a small grunt of surprise, holding on to his blanket while Sugawara went sprinting with him again. His ankle seemed to be holding up well, even when it was searing with pain, he must have only cracked it or something.

“Stop! Hey!”

Voices shrieked from down the hallway as the emergency lights sprung on, Sugawara didn’t look back, but the woman at the door did. She jolted when he came sprinting at her full force, brushing past her and through the door before she could even think of what was going on. He turned Kageyama in his grip with an easy hop, the boy clung on to him while he went treading through the snow, voices following their heels.


	5. snow making my socks wet, yuck

The freezing snow and ice up to his ankle over his sneaker felt nice when the two of them stumbled through the snow. Multiple times he had to help Kageyama who nearly tripped after he put him back down, the police officers had shouted and tried to run after them as they slipped on to the sidewalk and ran.

They lost the police to the woods again when they pulled down an alleyway between two stores and ran out the back. He heard police sirens blaring off somewhere while he and Kageyama came to a slow stop between trees, knee deep in snow.

Kageyama still held on to the flannel blanket over his shoulders, which was for the best. Neither of them had a coat, but the blanket would keep him a bit warmer. They stopped a minute to catch their breath, the wind blew roughly over the snow and against their bodies. Kageyama stared up to him, big dark eyes watching him carefully in what little light they had.

Sugawara fell down to his knees, he could feel a rough sting in his leg, all the way to the bone, and the scratching in his lungs. Kageyama came pushing through the snow to his front, a tiny cold hand going to his arm.

“Suga…”

“Kageyama, I-I’m so sorry we didn't come for you earlier,” He wheezed, a hand went up to hold his raw throat. “I promise I would have, I-I just got into some trouble,”

“Sugawara, I’m okay,” Kageyama spoke quietly, voice hardly coming over the whistling of the wind. Snow was already collecting in his hair and on his shoulders, his nose and cheeks had started to redden. Sugawara swallowed the lump in his throat, smiling weakly to the child.

“W-we’re going to go see Daichi and Hinata now, okay? I n-need a little bit of help.”

“Mm,” Kageyama raised the flannel blanket, huddling forwards to put the best of it he could around Sugawara’s shoulders while keeping it around his back. Sugawara blinked, his nose in Kageyama’s hair with the boys head bowed. “You’re really cold.”

“Come on now, w-we’ll find somewhere w-warm,” Sugawara smiled, his hands reaching under Kageyama’s blanket and gently patting his body. He was starting to get cold, too, the blanket wouldn’t last.

\------------

It took a few minutes for Daichi to answer their knocking. Kageyama knocked on the door for him while he steadied himself on the railing, looking up and down the street with paranoia. Sugawara hadn't seen any cruisers around, all the neighbors seemed to be inside, away from the storm by now. However, Sugawara was done with taking chances.

The two of them were frozen to the bone and covered in snow. Kageyama looked like he was bearing through it okay, but how much he was shivering was starting to scare him, the wind looked like it could take the both of them off their feet. He would have picked him up if he could, but they would both end up lying in the snow if he tried.

When the door finally opened, it only opened up a tiny crack, and then flung itself open. Daichi flew at him when he pulled him into a hug, lifting him slightly off his feet and catching him by surprise. Kageyama was lucky he had been standing two feet away, otherwise he would probably have been bowled over.

"Dammit...I'm sorry...I'm sorry..."

Sugawara leaned into the hug, letting Daichi’s warmth over take him. He hardly knew what to do in his half dazed state, but it felt too nice to argue with. He patted Daichi’s back to give his effort, trying to sooth his worried mumbling the best he could otherwise. “It’s okay Daichi, it’s a-alright.”

“I’m so fucking sorry...oh my god...you’re freezing…”

“Are you and Hinata safe?”

"Yes, he's inside-" Daichi pulled back and let Sugawara rock back on his heels, still leaving his arms wrapped around his waist. He was in a thick, warm, dark blue sweater with the school's emblem on the breast, a tiny embroidery. His face was red and creased, still picking at Sugawara and looking him up and down like he had broken a vase.

He smelt like he was showered and Sugawara could feel the heat coming off him in waves to his cold body. It felt almost painful from the sudden shock away from the cold, pins and needles tracing everywhere Daichi’s arms and body touched.

Surprise flashed in Daichi’s face when his head turned sideways and he finally noticed the smaller boy who had accompanied Sugawara. Kageyama stared up to them curiously, little hands grasping at the inside of his flannel blanket that was wet and coated with snow. He was shaking like a leaf, but his face didn’t show any discomfort.

"...Is that...?"

"I-It’s...kinda a long story," Sugawara waved a hand, Kageyama watched them while Sugawara was released fully. Daichi took a quick look up and down the street before making an ushering motion with his hand.

"Alright, come in quick, we'll talk more inside," Kageyama scurried inside on cue and Sugawara eased himself forward, wincing as he limped. Daichi was quicker to react, putting an arm under his for support and leading him into the home.

Sugawara had been in Daichi's house more times than he could count. The living room was made up of dark, navy blue furniture and a fireplace off to the far wall, three smaller coffee tables spread around and a longer one in the middle of the room. The curtains to the big front picture window were pulled, leaving the room dimly lit by a lamp in the far corner. Hinata was sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket and watching the television across the room sleepily.

Hinata perked when he saw them come in, his face lifting when he spotted Kageyama strolling at their sides.

"Kageyama!"

Like a bolt of lightning, Hinata was over to the other boy in a second and jumped on him, smothering him in a hug. Kageyama could only grunt as he stumbled back a foot, Hinata nuzzled into his cold neck affectionately and went on muttering things to the other child excitedly. Daichi lead Sugawara past the two and over to the couch, helping to ease him down to a sit before he gently let go. Sugawara let out a slow breath, feeling himself relax. It felt a thousand times better to be sitting after running around forever on a sore ankle.

Daichi was off again just as fast as he came, returning moments later with a big puffy blanket he must have gotten from his room. He dropped it on top of Sugawara before helping him spread it out, Sugawara thanked him quietly through his shivering.

"How did you even manage to escape?" Daichi questioned as Hinata and Kageyama came toddling back over, stationing themselves down at the other end of the couch. Hinata was eyeing him curiously when they came over, but seemed too wrapped up in catching up with Kageyama to pay him much mind. The redhead was already getting Kageyama’s shivering body under his own blanket that had been there, Kageyama accepted the help readily.

"Tanaka and Noya found me just after you left," Sugawara watched Daichi settled down next to him, looking over him carefully. He sat close, sharing his body heat warily, Sugawara gladly accepted it.

“They gave me a bit of time, but the cops got me in the end...The power went out, I found Kageyama there, we ran off. The police are still looking for us,” Sugawara sighed, Daichi rubbed one of his arms softly through the blanket to try and help him warm up with a look of concern.

"I’m so sorry, I had no idea where you were," Daichi apologized again, he put his other hand on Sugawara’s thigh. Sugawara flinched a little, since it was his bad leg, and Daichi pulled his hand back. He visibly winced, but suppressed it faster than Sugawara could comment on it. "I don’t blame Noya and Tanaka for helping you anyways, It's not like you would ever actually do something that dangerous or worthy of being arrested."

"You would think," Sugawara mumbled, Daichi bent down a bit as he touched his leg again. Shock flickered over him when Sugawara tensed up and flinched away from his touch in pain.

"I-I don’t know what’s up with it, it might be broken," Sugawara muttered through clenched teeth, staring down to it over the puff of blankets pulled up to his neck. "It...it was from my fall before, in the hall, I think.”

"Let me go get you something for it," Sugawara nodded and Daichi pulled up to a stand again. He was off from the room with a few quick strides, disappearing down the dark hallways. Sugawara turned his attention back towards the two children who were chatting quietly among each other. The two were in a the blanket that Hinata had been in, snuggled into the fabric and Kageyama into Hinata’s side, which was also a site to behold.

"You too?"

"Yeah."

"It was scary! And super super cold!"

"It wasn't that bad," Kageyama looked into his lap with a shrug. "I was just lost. The police guys found me earlier."

"You were totally scared too, don't lie!"

"I'm not lying."

"Of course not," Hinata rolled his eyes but interrupted himself with a sneeze. Kageyama recoiled a little with a disgusted look. Even as kids, there wasn't too much of a difference, other than Kageyama's temper being cooled down a little. If that was the regular Kageyama, that stunt would have earned Hinata a pinch or a slap to wherever he could reach. While busy making these speculations, Sugawara couldn't help but wonder what the kids were going on about.

"Hey...what are you guys up to?"

The two turned to look at Sugawara, their faces friendly and soft.

“Talking.”

"About our time in a woods!"

Which contrasted these words pretty badly. Sugawara decided to push anyways, shifting closer.

"Do you two remember how you got there?"

They stopped for a moment, Sugawara could see the gears turning through their eyes. They looked to each other for a few seconds before collectively shrugging.

"Do you remember anything before that?"

They stopped for a moment again, but came to the same conclusion.

"No....Not really! But I remember you, Suga. And Daichi…” He ceased a second before scratching his head. "...I don't know from where, though."

"We can talk more about it later, don't worry," Sugawara reassured with a soft smile, Hinata mirrored this notion while Kageyama grunted. Just in the nick of time, Daichi came hurrying back in with a plastic bin in his hands. It was at least a foot tall and wide, he set it down next to the couch while the others watched.

"I haven't had to dig this thing out in a while," Daichi spoke under his breath as he crouched back down, gently pushing up Sugawara’s pant leg. Hinata leaned over the side of the couch, watching Daichi's actions in curiosity before he straightened back up.

"What happened?"

"Oh, I just had a fall before, that's all. I should be fine," Sugawara reassured while Kageyama took his turn to bend forward and take a peek. Sugawara winced as he felt Daichi put pressure on the sore spot again, biting his lip. The children's features clouded, but Daichi was quick to look up.

"Hey, why don't you two do me a favor and go look for some tape in the kitchen?" Daichi offered up, the two boys looked back. "It should be in the cabinet, just be careful."

"Okay," The nodded in unison before pushing off the sofa, the two hobbled off and Sugawara watched them go before he looked back.

“It looks like you just cracked something. I don't feel anything out of place, but I’m not exactly a doctor.”

“You’re the best thing I’ve got right now, they didn’t seem to have any interest in helping me at the police station since I kept lying to them,” Sugawara let a slow breath out of his nose while he felt Daichi start to wrap something thick around his ankle. He grunted and held the blanket in his lap hard when he felt Daichi pulled it tight. Daichi put a gentle hand on his calf while his other finished off the job.

"T-thanks, really,"

"I should be the one thanking you. You were really brave back there," Daichi soothed before he stood, smiling encouragingly. "This is one big mess we're in, but it's for the right thing. You’re… You’re still okay with it, right?"

"I'm okay with it, we’ve come this far, and I could never leave either of them to be taken away," Sugawara insisted, hearing the idle conversation between the two children drift in from the kitchen. "But...we can't stay here forever."

"I know," Daichi breathed, glancing to the curtains. "The police aren't stupid, they'll be showing up soon. But I have a plan, anyways."

"You do? Thank god, mine was just to go run into the woods again or to try and bargain with them," Sugawara laughed, Daichi waved a hand.

"Well, my plan might not be the most morally right one, but I can assure you that after this we'll never have to do it again. Probably."

"..." Okay, now Sugawara was a bit worried. Especially with that guilty grin on his face. Sugawara was going to interrogate him, but a symphony of little footsteps interjected, Hinata and Kageyama came hobbling back with a roll of duct tape.

"Here you go!"

"Why, thank you!" Daichi took the roll with a smile from the grinning Hinata. "We'll probably grab some food and then we're going to be off again, if that's alright."

"Sure, I hope your plan doesn't include a hike though," Sugawara sighed. Daichi bent with the tape and used it to make a more secure bond on his ankle cast. He really did hope for that, he had had enough of walking on a sore ankle for one day.

"Yup, this plan requires no walking. These two can probably take a nap while we're at it, anyways," Daichi tore the tape off with his fingers, giving the makeshift cast a tiny pat as he sat up. Sugawara looked to him in confusion while he set the roll of tape down in front of him. "Let's go pack a bag, kids. It might be a long ride."


	6. beep beep

Sugawara was completely against it at first. It was too dangerous to even consider, especially when they were going to have two kids on board in a blizzard. However, Daichi had quite a few good points; Like how Sugawara would probably never walk again if they traveled by foot on his broken ankle, and how this would shelter them from public eye. Also, Daichi explained that he had driven a car once before, which was a little bit relieving.

However Sugawara was still plenty uneasy when he slid into the passenger seat of the dark red car. Hinata and Kageyama piled into the back, stuffed into a nest of blankets. Daichi helped them get seat belted in and shut the doors before he got to the front, climbing behind the wheel.

"Are you sure about this?" Sugawara shifted, pulling down his own buckle over himself. Daichi waved a hand as he pressed a button on the car keys, the garage door started to pull open. Snow still flurried down outside, a hearty foot of it made a small wall in the driveway

"The drive will be mostly on flat back roads anyways, I'll be careful," He shoved the keys into the ignition while Sugawara continued to sulk and worry. Daichi turned the key and the car hummed to life, the dash lit up and the garage door finished its track. The plan was to head to Daichi's family cottage, just out to the west. Their parents had two cars, and they were lucky enough they had left one at home today so they could use it for the ride over. They'd go over there and figure out a way to fix this, since there had to be a way... there just had to.

Daichi shifted the car into drive.

The car towed forward slowly, its nose pulled out the garage opening while Daichi kept his hands on the steering wheel. They watched with slow caution as he pulled out over the snow, it felt like the whole car held its breath. Then, it was let out suddenly when a loud beep sounded. Daichi let go of the wheel as to not jerk it with his jump before quickly putting his hands back on to it, Sugawara crumbling in his seat.

"W-what was that?!"

"My phone, sorry," Daichi sighed as he went back to pulling out of the driveway. "Can you get it?"

“Are you sure? What if it’s the police or something…?”

“Can you recognize the number?”

"Just a second," Sugawara breathed and quickly went for Daichi's sweater pocket, digging only for a moment before he retrieved the device. It rung in his hand once, Sugawara squinted at the bright screen; It was in Daichi’s contacts apparently, which was relieving. He pressed the green button near the bottom before pulling the phone up to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Daichi?"

"No, this is Sugawara."

"Suga! Oh thank god you're okay," It was Tanaka on the other end, his voice cheered up immediately as he heard who it was. "You’re okay, right?"

"We’re okay! Just a little bruised. How are you and Noya?"

"Noya's got a nasty shiner, but we're okay mostly...we might be in the dog house for tackling a police officer, but they let us go home, for now at least. What did you two even do? I’ve been trying to get to you all day!"

"Well," Sugawara bit his lip. "We're getting Hinata and Kageyama back. Something's happened, but just know that everything will be okay and you don't need to worry. I can't really tell you where we're going... or really for how long. But we'll be fine, you guys just focus on keeping yourselves alright too, okay?"

"Suga, man, that was vague as hell but you’re one of the strongest guys I've ever seen. I hope- hey, just like, five more seconds-!"

Sugawara could hear another muffled voice in the background as Tanaka struggled with his phone.

"Tanaka?"

"-There's a cop coming to Daichi's house! Watch out for-" The phone hung up, Sugawara took it down from his ear with furrowed brows.

"It was Tanaka?" They pulled out on to the snowy road and began to ride down slowly, Daichi kept his eyes peeled on the street, but stole a sideways glance at Sugawara. Sugawara hummed as he pushed the phone back into Daichi’s pocket.

"They're alright, apparently a cop is coming to your house."

"Well, we're gone now, so if they're looking for us, they'll have to look elsewhere," Daichi turned the wheel and they pulled around a turn, just in time to ride by a police cruiser stopped at a stop sign. Sugawara felt his stomach drop.

Daichi drove them around and kept going, both sitting tense in their seats. They weren't seen, that was good. Sugawara didn't think they'd be recognized in the car anyways, not unless the police had their picture on hand and had gotten a really good look at them.

Sugawara watched as the police cruiser pulled around the bend, disappearing behind the neighboring houses. Sugawara let out the breath he had been holding.

"Daichi, I really hope your plan will work. I can hardly handle all this," He sighed while adjusting his shirt collar, Daichi reached a hand over and held his shoulder.

"It's okay, it's for the better, right? This will all blow over soon."

"I really hope so."

\-------------

They drove on for what must have been a few hours. Sugawara couldn't remember since he had fallen asleep shortly after leaving, and so had the children in the back. Daichi had proven to be a better driver than he had thought, though Sugawara was just thankful that they hadn't been pulled over or spotted.

When Sugawara woke again, the sky overhead was still dark and he was alone. It startled him at first, made him stiffen and check his surroundings. The car was parked in what looked to be a wide parking lot, mostly empty other than a few other cars. There wasn’t really a lot of snow around anymore, which was pretty odd.

A few meters away was some fast food restaurant- he couldn't recognize the name, it must have been a local spot. The car was still warm, and he felt stiff after sleeping sitting up. He also had Daichi's jacket laid over him like a blanket. The fabric slumped off into his lap when he sat up and he could still smell his fresh scent sticking to him.

His hands instinctively searched for his phone, frowning when he found it was still gone. He hardly had a clue what time it was, but it looked late enough into the night. He shifted, his face contorting as he looked down to his feet. His ankle felt swollen and sore, it made his head spin just looking at it. He probably should have taken something for it before they left, but he didn't want to chance being knocked out longer than he needed to be.

Just as Sugawara began to move to loosen the sneaker over his bandages, a tap beside him made him sit back up. The door opened, the cool outside air rushed inside and gave him a chill.

"I thought you’d still be asleep," Daichi smiled warmly while he placed a paper bag in Sugawara’s lap, his other hand held a tray with two cups. Sugawara glanced about with sleepy eyes, his fingers bent and unbent a moment over the bag. Hinata was bouncing along behind Daichi towards the back with Kageyama in tow. "I stopped to get some food."

"Good idea," Sugawara hummed as he looked down to the warm bag in his lap, Daichi shut his door before moving back one and starting to help the two kids into the vehicle.

It only took a few moments for Daichi to shut the rear doors and come back to the front, he climbed into the driver's seat again and shut his door. Sugawara pulled out a rather large wrap from the bag while Daichi set the two coffees down from the tray in the holders to his right. He could compare it to his forearm, it was just as thick, too. The pit in his stomach came to light as he weighed it in his hands, his loose fingers tightened around it.

"Thanks," Sugawara nodded and Daichi hummed, he pushed the key back into its hole. When the car started back up, Sugawara sniffed the air. He suspected the smell to be beside him in the coffee holder where Daichi had set two cups. Curiously, he picked up the coffee he found to be the offender and glanced through the top drinking hole. "This smells pretty dark,"

"That one's mine," He grunted, looking into his mirrors. "The drives going to be long."

"You're staying up?" Sugawara furrowed his brows and set the cup back down, he laid the wrap across his lap. "And it's that long of a drive? I thought you said it would only be a few hours."

"A few hours if I drive through the night," The car pulled forward slowly, Daichi began to drive them through the lot and towards the exit. "Usually my parents do this, since there aren't many stops along the way."

"We could probably park somewhere later and rest," Sugawara puffed his cheeks. "I don't want you straining yourself or anything."

"It'll be alright, I promise, I've pulled all nighters before."

"Scandalous!" Sugawara threw his hands up dramatically, the two in the back giggling sleepily. "I thought you were a good kid, Daichi!"

"I'm a straight A's kid, straight A kids don't sleep," Daichi snickered while they pulled back on to the main road, trees crowded one edge while a long field sat at the other. It was a bit eerie, but the light atmosphere in the car kept their discomfort at bay.

"Well, if you think you can do it, go ahead then, mister nocturnal," Sugawara picked the wrap back up, starting to unwrap one end. "But the second you start to yawn, we're stopping."

"Fine, fine," Daichi couldn't help but chuckle, Sugawara grinned while he took a bite out of the food. He worried that Daichi might be pushing himself too hard, but he still had trust that he would take his turn to keep them safe and do the right thing.

\---------

Sugawara woke up again only a little while later, the car was quiet and as dark as they road. The night sky shone through the windshield, filled with stars while moonlight helped light their dark path. They had arrived pretty far into the countryside through these past few hours, Sugawara was surprised at how much sky he could see while he sat back up from being curled up in his seat. Then, he considered lying back down, from how utterly sick he felt after moving. He was going to speak up but a yawn came first, his fingers came to cover his mouth.

"You can go back to sleep, we're not there just yet," Daichi murmured, he glanced sideways to the teen before he looked forwards again. He could smell that Daichi had finished his coffee a while ago, he looked a bit sleepy but was watching the street with focused eyes.

Sugawara shifted with a small grunt, glancing into the back seat. Kageyama and Hinata were fast asleep, heads slumped together with a blanket over them. He looked back to the front, Daichi stifled a yawn, his heavy shoulders twitched.

"Hey, why don't we pull over?"

"Hm? I can still drive."

"I can’t imagine it's comfortable for them sleeping back there like that," Sugawara waved a hand, his other picked at the seat belt that dug into his neck. "I'm a bit uncomfortable, too. I'm sure we can pick up driving in the morning and be fine."

"Well, if you insist," Daichi squinted over the steering wheel, soon he pressed on the break. The car slowed while it pulled off to the street, it climbed over the gravel a few feet before coming to a smooth stop. The long wheat fields had broken into plains, flooded with moon and star light. With a twist of the key the hum of the engine slowed before burning out, pulling them into a more absolute dark and silence with only the moon's reflection allowing them see.

Daichi let himself out of the car for a moment to go to the back, he opened the door as quietly as he could before he unbuckled the two kids. They didn't stir a single bit when Daichi helped lay them down next to each other under the blanket.

Their faces were peaceful; Even when they were so young, they looked too similar to their older selves. It was strange, but calming to watch. He had never seen the two sleeping before this, yet it was somehow just how he would expect it to be.

Daichi only took a few seconds more before he shut the back door again and traveled around the car. He went into the trunk, shuffling around a few things before it shut carefully. He came around to Sugawara's side and opened up his door for him. He held a second blanket, a plaid pattern pasted on the flannel material draped over his arm.

"Why don't we step outside for a little bit?"

"Outside?" Sugawara peeked around him curiously.

"It's stuffy in there, you could probably use some fresh air."

"Well, alright, can't say I would mind," Sugawara smiled and balled up Daichi's sweater that had still been in his lap. He carefully swung his legs outside of the car, his left shoe off and only his rolled down sock left to half hide the bandages. Daichi offered him a hand and pulled him up to one foot before he put an arm under his. He lead him a few feet away before he shut the car door with his heel.

They ended up stopping a couple meters from the car, they laid their blanket over the thick grass. Daichi let Sugawara wear the sweater he had put over him in the car over his own from his lack of a coat; even though it hadn't snowed in this part of the countryside, it was still too freezing for just one sweater.

The air was refreshing, regardless of temperature. It was much cleaner than the city air, the sky was so clear that it felt like he could see every star. He sat about half a foot away from Daichi, the two stared up into the night sky with puffs of breath rising from their mouths like new clouds to join the small ones skitting along through moonlight.

"... Man, this all happened so fast," Daichi laughed lightly, his hands rested on his bent up knees while Sugawara leaned back on his own. He let out a soundless breath.

"I know, it feels so strange," Sugawara grinned up to the sky. "...I don't regret any of it. We're saving them both, even if this is quite the big mess."

"I couldn't agree more," Daichi smiled as well, Sugawara watched him through the corner of his eye. The starlight washed over his features, his eyes were bright and soft. He looked happy and contempt, just sitting out in the cold grass. Sugawara couldn't help but feel the same. It was relaxing, just the two of them under the stars. Of course, they were probably being hunted down by police forces as they spoke, two children to unknown families were missing, one of which was stolen right in front of two cops. But it didn't feel like it mattered too much now, danger felt so far away.

Yet Sugawara still felt like he couldn't drop something.

"You...you seemed so prepared for all of this," Sugawara looked his way as he commented, Daichi peered towards him as well, then awkwardly looked away.

"Well, you can never be too prepared for anything, you know?"

"Prepared to run away?" Sugawara chuckled, though this time Daichi didn't laugh along. He just smiled softly, looking into his lap.

"...Yeah. I've been prepared to run away, for long, long time," Daichi's quiet words startled him more than a whisper should have scared anyone. It left Sugawara staring at the boy through the dark. Daichi could only shift, unable to meet his eyes.

"I don't exactly mean it in much of that way, but you know how my folks are."

"I...I thought they were pretty kind people."

"They are, really," Daichi nodded, "They love me a lot, and I love them. But, they aren't very... accepting, of new things, you know?"

Sugawara took a moment to think, then blinked. Really, he guessed Daichi was right. His parents were supportive, they wanted him to be an athlete and to succeed in school. They gave him money when he needed it, took him out places, spent time with him...

However, after the fourth or fifth time Sugawara had come over and nobody else- not a girl- he could tell from a distance they had a strange suspicion, it was painfully obvious. Sugawara had never really commented on it, since he didn’t want to be rude, so it was to no surprise he had been putting it at the back his mind up until then.

There were also little things. Like Daichi trying to buy his own clothes and being independent, or sometimes being late home with his excuse being totally unbelievable for his parents. Sugawara had seen the red flags dropped here and there...but it only took until now for him to pay attention while looking for a different answer. Daichi's parents wanted him to be perfect, their idea of perfect. It was a bit scary to think of what they might do when they caught wind of this.

"Daichi, it's okay," Sugawara put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, squeezing it, making Daichi shudder the tiniest bit. "I accept you, just as you are. There's nothing you could change about you that I'd hate, you're my best friend."

Daichi stared at him with wide eyes, Sugawara wasn't sure if it was shock or relief, or somehow a mixture of both.

"I am?"

"Of course! How long have we known each other? Our entire lives?" Sugawara rolled his eyes with a laugh, Daichi grinned with worried look. "If you feel like you needed to run away, I'm with you all the way!"

"..." Sugawara stared as Daichi looked to his lap again, almost like he was reading a book. It was hard to tell in the white wash of moonlight, but...was that a blush, tinting his cheeks?

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you, Daichi,” Sugawara bumped the other teens arm with his own, keeping his voice soft and his face warm. “You’ve been pretty strong and brave through all of this. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“S…same!” Daichi awkwardly clenched a fist as he looked back his way again, Sugawara couldn’t help another laugh. This time, Daichi giggled along with him. “You’ve done pretty well through all of this, you’ve been nothing but helpful.”

“Oh, Daichi, you’re such a sweetheart when it comes to it,” Sugawara flapped a hand. It pulled up mid movement to cover his mouth, a yawn made his shoulders quiver. Daichi put a hand up on to his arm, giving him a small squeeze.

“You’ve had quite the action packed day, too.”

“Mm, I only ran away from the police and kidnapped a child, nothing special.”

“I see who the good kid is now,” Daichi chuckled, resting back on his other hand. “You hurt your leg in the hall?”

“Yeah, the cop tossed a big book right at the back of my leg,” Sugawara patted his knee, breathing a puff of cold air. “I never thought that the cops would play so dirty!”

“You know, because we were only kidnapping a child.”

“Yeah, well, they didn’t do a great job of stopping two teenagers in the end,” Sugawara shrugged, smiling dryly before he stifled another yawn.

“It’s pretty late, why don’t we go back to the car?”

“Sounds good to me,” Sugawara muttered, he pulled at the sleeves of his sweater. “It’s pretty chilly out here.”

“Agreed,” Daichi took his hand back before he climbed up to his feet. He helped Sugawara up as well before he collected their blanket and helped him back to the car.


	7. can't believe they even made it hooo

It was mid afternoon when they finally arrived. Daichi had slept around three hours more before he was up again and driving. Sugawara could tell he had stopped somewhere along the way for another coffee to not fall asleep behind the wheel from the new cup that had joined them and the scrunched up bag with what Sugawara could smell had donuts inside.

Sugawara woke up just when they started up a gravely driveway, the car bumped over the stones messily as it hauled up the hill. Daichi looked a bit tense and unsure of his driving capabilities while he did so, Sugawara watched the dash carefully and luckily they made it.

Sugawara was buckled in again and still lying under the plaid blanket Daichi had brought out and in the two sweaters, now he felt pretty warm. Hinata and Kageyama were still fast asleep in the back, silent other than the small breaths he could hear.

The car came to a stop in front of a big oak tree, early morning sunlight pricked Sugawara’s eyes that he rubbed the sleep from.

“We’re here.”

“Yaaay,” Sugawara whispered half enthusiastically, he ducked his head to peek out at the house. It was small, but had two stories, the outside was a bit in rough shape with dirt and dead leaves. Bits of trees that quickly thickened the further out they went bordered the lot, tall grass climbed the sides of the building.

“Haven’t been here in a little while,” Daichi shifted the gears before he took the car keys back, the car engine's hum came to a slow stop.

“A little while?”

“Maybe a year or three,” Daichi grinned while he shuffled over his key chain. He picked up one of the bronzed metal keys and scrutinized it a minute. “I’ve still got the key, though.”

“Well, I’d be disappointed it we came all this way and you didn’t.”

“Heh, really though.”

A sneeze from the back seat made Sugawara and Daichi turn, Hinata sat up right while Kageyama squirmed. It seemed the redhead had scared himself awake with his own sneeze, he looked around the car sleepily with a lost expression.

“Good time to get here,” Sugawara clicked the button on his seat belt while Daichi chuckled out of pity, he pushed open his car door. Both the kids were probably sick now from whatever Hinata had caught, Sugawara could only hope that a good nap in a proper bed would help them.

While Sugawara balled up the blanket over himself, Daichi spoke quietly to the kids in the back and coerced them to come out. Their small footsteps in contrast to Daichi’s heavy ones waded through the knee high grass. The back door was shut and Daichi came to Sugawara’s side to help him out.

“We’ll have to find a stick or something later,” Sugawara muttered while Daichi took his hands and helped him to a one legged stand. Daichi grunted with a little nod while he flattened some of the grass with a foot for Sugawara and put an arm under his. It looked to be mostly weeds and other misfits crowding the lawn, they must have truly not been up here for quite the while.

“Oh! Kageyama!” While they hobbled around the car together, Sugawara heard Hinata’s familiar exclamation and cooing. He was holding a sleepy Kageyama’s shirt sleeve and pointing across the yard, snapped out of his own sleepy state. Sugawara followed his gaze to a large oak tree just a few meters off from the home. Two ropes descended and made a swing with a dark wooden board, it swayed lightly in the breeze.

“It should be fine to play on,” Daichi commented while they watched Hinata go on dragging Kageyama towards it before yelling over, “Be careful please!”

“And don’t go far!” Sugawara added, Hinata and Kageyama hollered back.

“We’ll have to see if we can get them proper coats,” Daichi muttered as they kept going, Sugawara let his gaze travel around the property. It was up on a hill, so the sunlight reached it and had warmed the area up a little. There was fencing broken up on the outskirts, but it was mostly overrun by trees. The gravel driveway kept the plants at bay, though weeds were also working on taking over that part as well.

“What the…” Sugawara stopped before his heel could hit the ground again when his eyes fell on the front of their car, Daichi stopped as well but glanced away. There was a big dent and some long scratches in the paint, they trailed around the side of the car. It had just missed the headlight, but still looked pretty nasty. He looked back to Daichi who smiled guiltily.

“I...I’m not the best driver in the world, I’ll admit, but it was just a curb, and it didn’t even wake you guys up,” Daichi explained sheepishly, Sugawara rolled his eyes.

“We’ve got to get you driving lessons sooner or later anyways,” He mumbled while they hauled off again, the two huddled towards the house. Daichi fetched his keys from his pocket again when they approached up on to the porch. The door looked rusted and dirty as well, Sugawara could only hope quietly that it would work as he watched Daichi fumble the key into the hole. It turned with a few clunks, Daichi pulled it back and he pushed open the door, which gave them a drawn out squeal in response.

Inside was just a chilly as the outside. The doorway lead right into the kitchen, left moderately clean other than a thick layer of dust and a few questionable dirt piles here and there. One of the light bulbs in the light over the kitchen table had shattered, leaving glass over the table and floor. The windows in this area had thankfully not been broken, though. It smelt strong of dust and a strange musty, wet smell.

“I’ll sweep that up before Hinata and Kageyama come back in,” Daichi reassured as he lead Sugawara further into the home. Sugawara let go of him when they approached a wall where he put his hand to balance himself, Daichi took a step away.

“I’ll help out the best I can, but at least the mess doesn’t look too bad.”

“Yeah, it shouldn’t take too much work.” Daichi spoke cheerily while he nipped his way to the closet. He pulled the shut over door while he looked for a broom that surprisingly didn’t squeal at the hinges, but something else did. A few flashes went by his feet and he stumbled back, making Sugawara jump when he gave a yelp of surprise. Four rats went streaming out the front door they left open, Daichi caught himself on the table while his other hand held his heaving chest.

“Daichi-”

“Oh, shit,” He muttered in a hiss as he pulled himself off the table. Blood dripped down his wrist from the thin glass caught in his palm, the both of them winced and looked away.

“Man, and I thought we’d be having better luck when we got here.”

\---------

They swept up the remainder of the glass before anything else, the last thing they needed was more accidents involving that. Sugawara kept an eyes on the two playing out by the tree while he helped fix Daichi’s hand. With what little they had he was able to get most of the glass out and cover it up with a strip of bandage he tied over the knuckle of Daichi’s thumb, then hope that it wouldn’t get infected.

Daichi swept out the closet where the rats had been living as well while Sugawara went through the cupboards for any other intruders and dusted off the counters. The kitchen would be a good enough area to have clean for now, they needed at least one area to live in before they cleaned the rest of the house.

Soon enough, two pairs of little feet came scurrying up to the front door, the screech of hinges marked their arrival.

“Suga! Suga!”

“Hey there, you two have fun outside?” Sugawara stood leaning on the counter, smiling softly while Hinata came running up to him with Kageyama in tow. To his surprise, the redhead reached a hand up, three daisies clutched in his fingers. “Are these for me?”

“Yeah! I found them outside!” Hinata beamed while Sugawara took them gently from his hand. Sugawara examined them a moment, looking over the smooth white petals.

“They’re lovely, Hinata. They’ll look nice in this old dusty place,” Sugawara watched Hinata get even more happy with himself, vigorously nodding. Just as he set the flowers up on the counter to go look for a cup or vase for them, another sneeze filled the room. Kageyama wiped his face on his arm while Hinata looked back to him; the brunette looked drowsy when he let his arm fall back down, his head drooping forward a bit. Sugawara felt a pang of guilt, realizing now he really shouldn’t have let him go outside like that.

“Daichi, do you think you could help get a bedroom ready?”

“Hm?” Daichi pulled his head from the closet again, his hair had become a new home for some of the dust in the small space. “Oh, sure. I’ll be right back then.”

“Thanks.”

Daichi rounded the corner at the back of the kitchen and went off into the hall, Sugawara listened to him scale the stairs in the back before turning back to the children. Hinata was watching him curiously while Kageyama dozed off on his feet.

“You don’t have to go to bed with him, but I think Kageyama needs a nap,” Sugawara explained gently as he knelt down on his good leg and dropped on to the knee of his other to relax. Hinata looked back to Kageyama again, giving his little hand a squeeze with his own.

“Kageyama you do look tired!”

“Mm, just a little,” The boy yawned, one hand came up to cover his mouth. Sugawara reached out one of his own and softly put it on Kageyama’s head, the boy didn’t argue.

“Damn, I knew it,” Sugawara muttered quietly, more to himself while he brushed down Kageyama’s hair. He had a fever, the cold musty house would only make it worse. Hinata looked between him and Kageyama while Sugawara climbed back to his good leg.

“You might be a little sick, Kageyama. But we’ll have you better in no time, don’t worry.”

Kageyama nodded, Hinata looked back up to him; Kageyama seemed to know this wasn’t any new information for him. Thankfully, it looked like Hinata had fended off whatever sickness he had gotten already, hopefully Kageyama would do the same. Sugawara perked when he heard Daichi’s heavy steps coming down the stairs again, moments later he appeared through the kitchen doorway. He held something under his arm, the two children turned to look as well.

“The upstairs is in much better condition than down here. I took a quick look and found this left in the supplies closet,” He lifted the object from under his arm to stand upright. It was a single metal crutch, the padding on the armrest was a bit torn but the rest of it looked stable.

“Ah! Lucky! I was worried about finding something suitable,” Sugawara grinned and Daichi came around the table. He handed over the crutch before he bent down beside Sugawara to adjust it’s height.

“There,” Daichi confirmed while he came back to his feet. “It might be a bit small, but it should work for now.”

“Thank you, really! It works just fine,” Sugawara tested his weight on it carefully while Hinata came closer to examine the metal. It creaked a little under him, but it held his weight. It was relieving now to not have to depend on Daichi to help cart him around, he’d be able to help with cleaning up the place better when he wasn’t hopping about on one leg.

“Is the room alright to go up to?”

“Yup, I just have to run out to the car to get the blankets and stuff. They’re ready to go back to bed now?”

“Kageyama’s not feeling well, it’d probably be best to let him sleep it off for now.”

“Alright, I’ll be quick,” Daichi nodded before marching past, going off through the front door again. Sugawara ushered the smaller boys with his free hand.

“Come on now, let’s go see what it’s like upstairs.”


	8. Daichi's gonna kill us

They got Kageyama settled in upstairs, tucked in a thick blanket and curled up on the bed near the window. The room was small, but there were two others to make up for it in the second level. Sugawara had found a small enough jacket (which wasn’t really all that small) in the closet for Hinata to wear since the house was still pretty cold. Sugawara himself still wore two sweaters over one another since it worked for now. When the two of them came back downstairs again, Daichi was tinkering with some sort of opening in the wall near the bathroom.

“What are are you up to?” Hinata went toddling past Sugawara while they came back into the kitchen, Daichi glanced over his shoulder before looking back.

“Trying to turn the power on, maybe get some heating in here,” He flicked a few things while Sugawara went on past the kitchen table.

“Don’t hurt yourself in there.”

“I’ve got it,” Daichi muttered while he fiddled with a few things blocked by his wide shoulders. Sugawara went on over to the fridge while Hinata investigated a small spider web off at the window. He pulled the door of the refrigerator open carefully and found relief when he saw it was empty. He wasn’t sure how much food Daichi had brought with them, but it was good to have a clean storage space for what they had.

“Suga,”

“Hm?” He shut the fridge and looked to Hinata who squatted near the door. He pointed with a finger to the corner so Sugawara approached and peeked from where he stood. He pulled face and recoiled when he spotted the spider curled up in the corner behind its web. It looked to be at least the size of a quarter with even longer legs. Hinata didn’t seem the least bit scared, more intrigued than anything.

“Hinata, I don’t think you should touch that.”

“It’s so big!”

“Y-yes, yes it is.”

“There it is!” Daichi muttered just before there was an audible click. The refrigerator beside him suddenly hummed to life, the remaining light bulb flickering on. Sugawara glanced behind himself towards Daichi after taking a look around the room, feeling pride swell in his chest. He didn’t think that they would get this far, power and heating was great! The pride was slapped away when there was a pop at the ceiling, all three of them flinched when glass shards showered over the table again.

Hinata had somehow like lightning ended up behind Sugawara, peeking out from behind his legs while Daichi stepped back from the breaker. His grin faltered and he rubbed the back of his head.

“Well, the fridge and heat work at least.”

“That’s better than nothing,” Sugawara smiled back warily while Hinata peeked to Daichi from behind him, “We’ll have to go see if we can steal a lamp or something from one of the other rooms for in here.”

“There should be an extra in the living room,” Daichi pointed while he closed the breaker box, Sugawara started off that way with Hinata following his heels.

\--------

They spent the rest of the morning unpacking what little supplies they brought with them into their fridge and cleaning up the house. Daichi had tried to convince Sugawara to go lie down multiple times, but he only did so when Daichi went as well. They found their way into the tiny living room and sat on the musty couch.

Hinata had run off outside not long ago to go play so Sugawara watched him quietly from the living room window. His red hair popped out from the grass easily, so he hardly had to put much effort into finding him.

Daichi sat in a cracked leather arm chair while Sugawara sat on the end closest to him on the couch. The TV was on quietly to one of the three channels they had, some sort of old movie about geese that they had tuned in to halfway through. The house was starting to warm up, though Sugawara still stayed snuggled up in the blanket he had been in in the car.

“What do you think we should make for supper?”

“Hm?”

“Hinata and Kageyama will be getting hungry soon, and I don’t think we’re that close to anywhere to eat out.”

“Oh, yeah. I bought some stuff, uh, do you think they like pasta?”

“I’ll check with Hinata when he comes back in,” Sugawara hummed, “I’m not sure if Kageyama’s up for eating right now, but I’ll ask him in a little.”

“Ah, yeah, it would probably be good to feed him something if he can eat it.”

“Yeah, poor guy,” Sugawara sighed, he pulled his legs up more under him. “It looks like he caught whatever Hinata had. Thankfully we won’t have to stay here forever, and whatever...thing...that has happened has to blow over.”

“Yeah,” Daichi acknowledged, he stared at his hands resting in his lap. Sugawara took another check on Hinata, spotting the bright red hair bouncing along on his head while he stumbled through grass. He went back to the swing and climbed on, the tree held without issue while he pumped his legs and swung.

Even on this spur of the moment trip, Hinata seemed contempt. He didn't ask why, he didn’t say he wanted to be home, he seemed happy just being around them. Did he miss his parents? His sister? Did he even know they existed? Where they went? Sugawara didn’t even know.

It all felt like a weird dream, they had sprung into it so fast. What were his own parents thinking? Did they hear about his escape already? Were the police hot on their tail, or lost without a clue to where they could have went?

What was going on with the two, anyways? Two of their own teammates were just up to his thigh, now. One of which had towered over him any day, with a scowl firmly planted on his face that could make anyone cry. Something must have happened on the day they went missing, but he couldn’t contact Noya or Tsukishima to ask any more about it, since it seemed they were the last to see Kageyama and Hinata as their regular selves.

He was kind of tired, his leg ached.

“Do you think…” When Sugawara turned his head to look back to Daichi, his voice trailed off. The teen stared into his lap still, but his face had dropped. He looked lost and upset, but the look snapped away when he heard Sugawara speak.

“Oh- what?”

“...Daichi, are you alright?”

“Y-yep, I’m good I’m good, just a little tired,” He pulled a smile that hurt just to look at, sniffing awkwardly. “It’s been a long day.”

“It...it has,” Sugawara agreed, but he felt quite dissatisfied with that answer. “Daichi, if something’s wrong-”

“No, no, it’s okay, really,” Daichi waved a hand and looked away from his friend. “It’s nothing, really.”

“It doesn't look like nothing.”

Daichi sighed through his nose.

Sugawara watched him as he strung his hands back together in front of himself. Watching his fingers and refusing to look at much else, the stressed look slowly faded back in.

“I’m….I don’t really know how to feel right now.”

“...”

“It sounds stupid, it feels stupid, too,” Daichi went on, his thumb scratched at the bandage that clung to the side of his hand. “But I just don’t know what to think. I kind of miss home already, I feel so guilty for doing this, but we had to, right? It was the right thing to do... Right?”

So he was scared, too.

Sugawara reached over a hand from under his blanket, having to lean to reach but resting it gently on Daichi’s arm. The boy looked to him, breath slow and steady.

“Daichi, your thoughts aren’t stupid. It’s normal and fine that you’re upset over this. This whole thing scares me too, I hardly know what to make of it,” Sugawara admitted quietly, holding Daichi’s gaze and his hand held the fabric of his shirt. “But we’ll make it through, the team back home is routing for us, even if they don’t know what’s going on either. I’m sure we’ll make it out of this okay.”

“...I’m sorry, really,”

“There’s nothing to apologize for, don’t worry,” Sugawara laughed lightly while Daichi rubbed the side of his face. He gave his arm a little squeeze, “You should think about sleeping for a little while, you stayed up all night driving us before, you don’t want to crash.”

“Ah, yeah,” Daichi muttered back and broke into a little smile again. “I should, but my sleep schedule will get all out of whack. Plus I can’t leave you to watch Hinata all by yourself.”

“I can manage, he’s full of energy, but not too bad. Well, not bad yet.”

“Heh, I’m surprised I haven’t seen the two of them get into a fight yet.”

“Me too!” Sugawara put a hand up to his own face. “They’ve been so good to each other, I thought they might be tearing at each other’s throats again! But they’re different, it’s weird.”

“Maybe it’s because Kageyama’s sick?”

“Maybe… I haven’t really seen him sick before, so I don’t think I can know for sure.”

“Hinata seems to like him more, anyways,” Daichi excused while Sugawara glanced out again to check on the boy. He was still on the swing, going a bit slower now. “They’re acting like friends, I wouldn’t complain.”

“Mm, I can't complain either, if only it had been this easy when they first joined the club.”

“I think they’ve gotten better since back then, you have to give them that.”

“I know, I know, but they were horrid-”

Sugawara stopped himself in surprise when he heard a rapid thumping coming from upstairs. He turned just in time with Daichi looking as well to see Kageyama zoom past like a speeding rabbit. They listened to him skid into the kitchen before bolting into the bathroom, the door bounced off the wall from being tossed open. The two could only sit in stunned shock; he was only around five or six, but that was quite the fast sprint. Then, the worry kicked in.

“Kageyama?”

Daichi got up first and went scurrying off while Sugawara was left to fight with his crutch. He found his way to his feet and set off to the bathroom. With a quick pace he soon found Daichi on his knees beside Kageyama in the bathroom, the door left ajar while the teen rubbed the child’s back.

\---------

They all settled down for the night, and after a quick supper of dry pasta all of them were exhausted. Since Hinata wouldn’t sleep in a room on his own, Sugawara broke and let him sleep with Kageyama, but he had to stay across the room on the pull out couch.

They had made plans not long before supper to risk looking down at the local market for something to help with Kageyama’s sickness. He couldn’t eat anything that night after he threw up and ended going right back to lie down anyways, whatever he had caught was really hurting him.

Sugawara and Daichi had taken the second room across from the stairs. Daichi had went into the third to sleep there but came back after apparently discovering a strange wet indent in the middle of the mattress that wasn’t worth checking out in the middle of the night.

So, they shared the double bed that Daichi’s parents would usually take, sitting on their separate sides and keeping their voices low. Hinata and Kageyama had been fast to fall asleep again, he didn’t want to risk waking them up. The dim glow of the lamp on Daichi’s side of the bed gave them enough light to see while they spoke.

“It can still get pretty cold in this house, even with the heating on,” Daichi muttered while he fumbled with his sleeping bag in his lap, tugging carefully at the zipper that caught on the fabric. Sugawara was already bundled up in his own, watching as Daichi finally got the zipper unstuck. He gave the sleeping back a flap to straighten it out, a small triumphant hum came from his throat. Sugawara couldn’t help a little laugh.

“I’m sure it’ll heat up in no time, the house isn’t that big,” Sugawara nodded back as he sat against the bed’s headboard. Daichi gave him a quick glance over his shoulder awkwardly while he stuffed his legs into the sleeping bag, but said nothing.

“It’s old, but things should work.”

“How far is the marketplace from here?”

“Hm?”

“I just think it’s going to be a bit difficult tomorrow for our run. We might have to leave Kageyama here if he can’t survive the car ride, but I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

“Yeah...that is a bit of a problem,” Daichi agreed, a knuckle went to his upper lip in thought. “We might just have to take him with us with a bucket or something, or lock the place up well enough. Maybe one of us should stay behind?”

“I could probably do that if it comes to it, just be careful out there. I’m pretty sure that snow back home should be coming over here soon enough, and it's not like you exactly have the best driving skills.”

“My skills are good enough,” Daichi pouted while he lifted his hips and moved to lay down. Sugawara decided to do so as well, carefully he inched himself on to his back.

“Good enough to not kill us, so I guess I won’t argue too much,” Sugawara pulled the sleeping bag up over his shoulders, lying flat on his back. “Where did you learn to drive, anyways?”

“My dad taught me a little while ago,” Daichi pulled his arms up behind his head, relaxing into the pillow. “He wasn’t too bad of a teacher, he just wanted me ready for when I finally went to get my license.”

“Good on him I guess, I don’t think he could have predicted you’d use these skills to steal his car.”

“Heh, no, I don’t think he saw that one coming,”

“....Oh, what did you do with your phone, anyways?”

“Phone? I left it in the car, pretty sure I popped the battery out a while ago when I was driving. Apparently those things can have a GPS or whatever in them to track people down, what did you do with yours?”

“It’s still sitting in the nurse’s officer at school in my coat,” Sugawara chuckled sadly. “It would have been nice to have on me, but I guess they can be dangerous.”

“Yeah, I’m not really up for whatever messages could be sitting on their anyways. I can’t imagine my folks are too happy about this.”

“Ah… To be fair, I told them it was uh...I think Tsukiguchi something that was my accomplice.”

“Tsukiguchi?... Isn’t that just a combination of Tsukishima and Yamaguchi?”

“Yeah I don’t know either, it was just the first thing that came to mind. They didn’t know who you were since only the sub saw your face, but I don’t know if my parents told them it was you or not… probably, though. They were going to figure it out sometime,” Sugawara breathed and folded his hands up on to his chest while Daichi simply hummed.

“It’s fine, I guess. We dug this hole ourselves, after all. We just have to hope after whatever happened to Hinata and Kageyama pass, they won’t pin us as murderers.”

“...Oh. That sounds pretty bad,” Sugawara blinked a moment, his lips tightening over his teeth. Would they be able to explain this to a police force? Would The two kids remember everything when they came back to normal?...Would they actually be normal ever again?

“But hey,” Daichi pulled his attention back, he glanced over to see the teen looking his way. “At least we’ll have some pretty interesting stories and memories coming out of this.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Sugawara dimpled back to Daichi’s shy smile, a bit of weight lifted off his chest. Good memories while doing a good thing, Sugawara couldn’t ask for anything more.


	9. wee wooo weee wooo

The blaring of sirens woke him up instantly. Sugawara shot up straight in bed, fumbling to get his bearings. The bedroom walls flashed red and blue, lights streamed and flashed in from the windows. His heart leaped to his throat, he looked to his side. Daichi was missing.

Faster than anything he tossed his legs over the side of the bed. Stumbling up to the window, he looked out. He couldn’t see through the bright light, he needed to go downstairs.

He stumbled out into the hallway, turning to look in the kids room. It was empty, too. He heard talking downstairs, and loud banging made him jump. His feet took him staggering down the stairs, just as his foot hit the last step and he got a glimpse into the red and blue living room, arms grabbed him from behind.

He woke up again.

Sugawara’s whole body stiffened in a jolt, his arms tucked in behind him and he felt something collide with his elbow.

“O-Ooh!” Daichi rolled away from him, Sugawara pushed himself up to a quick sit. The brunette boy held his face and Sugawara gasped.

“Oh! Sorry!” Sugawara’s hands went to his own face as Daichi scrambled up to a sit, grunting while he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Sorry, I’m alright!”

“I-It was me who hit you,” Sugawara squinted at Daichi’s face as he brought his hands down. He looked back sleepily, but was otherwise fine.

“You uh...you okay there Suga?”

“Huh?”

“You’re looking a little scared there, yourself.”

“Uh-” Sugawara straightened back up, looking about the room. “I think I had a nightmare, that’s all. Haven’t had one of those in a while…”

“Probably stress,” Daichi yawned and stretched his arms out over his legs a moment before he flopped them back down to his sides. His hair was messy and his shirt hung loosely off of him, Sugawara pushed hair out of his own face. “What was it about?”

“Oh, nothing important really, can’t really remember it,” Sugawara brushed it off with a shrug, he glanced around the room, taking in the wonderful cold and paint crusted scenery once more in the new morning light. It felt weird waking up in the room, but apparently he’d been there long enough for it to creep into his dreams. He looked back to Daichi, sniffing and rubbing one cold arm with his other hand.

“Do you have the time?”

“Mm...no, but it looks early enough,” Daichi scratched the back of his head before he pulled his legs over the side of the bed. Sugawara took a look over at his one crutch balanced against the empty nightstand, letting last nights dream slink away from his thoughts.

\-------

The two of them got themselves up and did what little they could to get ready for the day. Sugawara didn’t have a change of clothes, which made him feel a little gross, but Daichi said he would look for any in the supply closet later. Sugawara went off to the boys room, doing so quietly incase Kageyama was still asleep. Though when he approached the door, he could hear the faint sound of muffled voices on the other side.

With a careful hand he pushed the door open slowly, listening to the chatter fade out when he did.

“Hinata?”

“Suga!” Hinata grinned to him when he entered. The redhead sat in Kageyama’s bed, Kageyama was sitting up too. They sat by the window at the head of his bed, closed with a torn screen. Kageyama looked a bit drowsy, but maybe just the slightest bit better from yesterday.

“Up already?” Sugawara towed himself into the room, listening to Daichi walk past behind him and go for the stairs.

“Yeah! I’m showing Kageyama the flowers!”

“The flowers?” Sugawara came slowly over to the bed while Hinata nodded excitedly. He moved himself over some so Sugawara could peek out, looking over the sea of weeds.

“You see near the tree? Under the swing and stuff?” Hinata explained with a quiet tone, poking at the window. Sugawara squinted and leaned in, quickly he spotted the splashes of purple and white on the ground between lush green weeds. It looked like the sunny hill and thick weeds had protected the flowers so far from the cold weather, it felt weird to see all the flowers in the dead of winter.

“I see them, how pretty,” Sugawara smiled while Hinata beamed, Kageyama leaned back against the wall. Sugawara bent back up and looked his way.

“Are you feeling any better today?”

“A bit,” He sniffed, little hands brushed some messy hair out of his face. He still looked pale and sickly, but it was good to see him sitting up.

“We might be going out to town in a little while, just to pick a few things up,” Sugawara explained softly, the two kids turning to watch him head on. “If you’re not feeling up to it, I’ll stay home with the both of you and Daichi can just go out, no problem.”

“Okay!”

“Alright.”

“Good! Now, I’ll go make something for breakfast. Kageyama, are you interested?”

“...Sure.”

“Great!” Sugawara smiled cheerily before he turned again. “Come down whenever you’re ready, we’ll just be in the kitchen.”

\----------

“Did you bring any bread along?”

“Hm?”

“I can’t find it in here,” Sugawara shuffled along the fridge's contents, he pushed aside a container of juice and some butter. Daichi stood at the stove making some scrambled eggs. It was one of the things he knew best how to make, and since Sugawara was still working on his cooking skills, it would do for now. Hinata and Kageyama sat at the kitchen table, Hinata spoke excitedly to the sleepy looking child. He was talking about flowers again, and the big spider he’d seen in the corner, nothing too interesting to listen in on.

“If it’s not in there, I might have left it in the trunk,” Daichi explained while he picked up the frying pan, shaking it back and forther a bit. “I can go get it when I have a minute if you want.”

“No, it’s alright, I can get it,” Sugawara moved back and shut the fridge and started past Daichi who looked over his shoulder.

“Well, alright. Just don’t hurt yourself.”

“I got it, don’t worry,” Sugawara chuckled, patting his shoulder as he passed. He worked his way over to his shoes, slipped them on and snagged the car keys off the small key rack next to the door. He would like to keep just a bit of pride in being independent while having to deal with the dumb broken ankle.

He carefully slipped out the front door again, squinting in the morning light. The cool air sent a cold chill down his back, he was quick to shut the door behind him to keep their heat in. He made his way off the step and then down the small path of weeds that had been squashed down from the door to the car.

The grass was a bit difficult to walk on but he managed to make it to the back of the car where he popped the trunk. It swung open with a few small cracks from the frost, Sugawara pushed it open the rest of the way.

Inside there were three bags of rice and four cases of water bottles- Sugawara stared in shock to the stock before him. Where had he gotten all this? Did he just keep it in the house? Sugawara hadn’t been watching when he stocked the trunk, he had no idea he was going to take this much.

It caught his eye when he spotted a ruffled up sheet, he bent in to pull it out of the way. Underneath it, two loafs of bread had been hiding, Sugawara collected them with his free hand. He would question Daichi on it later, but he guessed it wasn’t a bad idea that they had a lot of supplies. If they ended up staying here longer than anticipated, they’d need it.

Just as he went to bend back up and shut the trunk, he heard a strange noise. Kind of like a vibration, coming from inside the car. He bent in further and searched the back a bit more before he backed away and shut the trunk. Traveling carefully around the car, he peered inside the driver's side window.

He blinked in surprise when he saw Daichi’s phone left in the driver’s seat, face down but moving a bit with vibrations. He said he had taken the battery out, but Sugawara knew better than to trust anything he said he did while pulling an all nighter.

Swiftly pushing the key into the cars lock, he took a step back before he tugged open the door. He set the bread down on the car’s floor before he picked the phone up and turned it over to the black screen. Pushing the home button, it immediately lit up.

Ten missed calls, and dozens of texts. The phone battery was just running out from all of this, but Sugawara could see all the messages sent just from the lock screen. He slid his finger across the clean touch screen, tapping in a few numbers. Daichi was sadly pretty obvious with his passwords; his team number after his birthday was at least a notch up on the creativity scale. Sugawara didn’t like to be nosy, but he wouldn’t be giving this phone back to him if it had anything nasty on it.

“Daichi. Where are you? The cars gone, me and you’re mother are worried sick!”

“Daichi, please tell us what’s going on. Are you okay?”

“I just got a call from the police. Daichi, I swear, get back home right now.”

“Daichi, don’t ignore me.”

“You are disgracing our family. Abducting a child with that Koushi boy? You better come back here, that car is brand new.”

“You are grounded.”

“......”

“Fine. Don’t come back. Consider yourself disowned, we didn’t want a son who's a disgusting fag-”

Sugawara stopped scrolling. Yeah, there was no way he was showing Daichi this. He turned the phone over, carefully picking off the case before he opened up the back. With an easy hit into his palm the battery came out. He collected the pieces before grabbing up the loafs of bread in his other hand.

He locked the door before backing away and shutting it, he glanced off into the field surrounding the home. Guiltily he looked between that and the phone parts.

“Sorry Daichi,” he muttered before tossing the rest of the parts in one hand, the battery in his other. Pulling the arm back, he threw the battery as hard as he could out into the grass. It sailed easily through the cool air before landing off somewhere, Sugawara quickly worked on putting the rest of the phone together.

It felt dangerous to extinguish their only means of communication to the outside world, but they didn’t need the cops finding their location anyways. He stuffed the rest of the phone away into his jeans pocket before he turned on his crutch, holding the bread in one hand while he went off back into the house.

\---------

The eggs didn’t go as well as planned. They were only five minutes into sitting at the table eating before Kageyama bolted off into the washroom, vomiting up any of the meal that he could have been holding down. Daichi went to his aid, rubbing his back again and cleaning his face before helping him back upstairs. Hinata could only watch with a little worried expression while Sugawara tried to pull his mind elsewhere.

The two of them finished off their breakfast and Hinata scampered off to the living room. Sugawara collected their dishes and was setting them in the sink just as Daichi came back down the stairs.

“I don’t think Kageyama can come with us today.”

“You don’t say?” Sugawara felt deflated while he ran water into the sink over their dishes. Just when he thought he might be better, Sugawara could only wonder what was making it worse.

“I’ll try and find a pharmacy while I’m out and ask them about it, but I’m sure it’s just a passing cold or something, maybe the flu,” Daichi stepped past him and went over to the coat rack by the door, he picked his jacket off and pulled it over himself.

“Well, please just be careful out driving, alright? And uh, maybe try to not let anyone remember you?”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I said I’ll be in and out quick. Most the people out here are four times my age, anyways, so I doubt even if I handed them my ID they’d remember me.”

“Heh, well, still be careful then,” Sugawara couldn't help the little grin while he glanced back to Daichi. His friend gave a little thumbs up before he paused.

“Oh, I forgot to mention this before, but the key for the cupboard under the TV is in the nightstand drawer in our room.”

“The cupboard?”

“It’s where we keep the DVD player and a few other...uh..gaming machines?”

“...Consoles?”

“Yeah, that, forgot the word,” Daichi smirked, Sugawara snickered. “There’s games there, too. It’s a bit cold for Hinata to be outside without the proper gear, so maybe you could dig out that stuff?”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Sugawara grinned, he turned himself fully with a tiny bit of effort. Daichi went on scuffling on his shoes just as Sugawara remembered something again.

“Oh- Do you have money to go with? I think I’ve got some on me maybe,”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it.”

“Really? I thought you bought food for us before, too.”

“I brought some savings with us.”

“Savings?”

Daichi stared a moment as he finished getting his shoes on, before shrugging. “I had the money, I thought I’d bring it. You never know when you need it, right?”

The blatant lie hurt, Sugawara could see through it, the memories of their drive over sprung up again: Daichi had been prepared to run away, longer than Sugawara would have thought, apparently. He passed it off with a little smile and a nod, letting his shoulders relax.

“Well, I guess I should be grateful you thought of it. Go on then, I don’t have a clock to time you, but please be back quick.”

“Don’t worry about it. See you later,”

“See you.”


	10. i forgot to name this one at first now it doesn't get one

“Whacha doing?”

“Trying to make this key work,” Sugawara mumbled, doing his best to suppress his annoyance while he rubbed the key with his thumb. He had found it just where Daichi had said it would be, but time wasn’t as nice to it, or maybe it was just the lock. He’d been fiddling with the thing for at least five minutes now, it was no wonder Hinata would wonder what he’s up to.

The redhead stepped around to his other side to kneel down in front of the television as well, peeking curiously to the cabinet doors. They were solid dark wood, their hinges a bit rusted as well. Sugawara had left his crutch a few inches off leaning against the bulky cabinet while he sat on the hardwood floor.

He took one quick look at his handy work, most of the rust rubbed off the key to slim it down before he went and jammed it back into the lock. Doing what people usually shouldn’t do, and giving it a hard shove, the key finally slid into the lock with an odd crunching noise. Sugawara took a moment to recollect himself before pushing on, thankfully the key turned with only a few bumps.

“There we are!”

“Ohh?”

Sugawara let the cabinet door slide open before reaching in, his hands coming back with a dusty VCR. Hinata eyed it curiously and a bit on edge, Sugawara set it down between them and dusted off its top with a hand.

“Old thing that plays movies. Let’s see what else is in here,” Sugawara reached back in and pulled out a bundle of cords, moving them to his other side before he went on digging more. Hinata poked at the buttons of the powerless machine before him and Sugawara came out with something more familiar.

“Ooh! A wii!”

“Heh, I didn’t think he would have one of these here,” Sugawara commented as he examined the game system carefully. Other than a winter coat of dust it looked in pretty good shape. Hinata beamed excitedly at his side, so Sugawara set it down with a chuckle.

“Alright, how about we see what games he has for it?”

“Yeah! Yeah!”

It only took them ten or so minutes more before they had the system set up. Sugawara had left Hinata to leaf through a small CD holder full of games while he fumbled with the cords, hoping quietly to himself the entire time that he was doing it right and wouldn’t electrocute himself. Once he got it all plugged in and turned it on, Hinata looked ecstatic.

“You’ve played one of these before?”

“Yeah!” Hinata nodded vigorously while Sugawara made his way back over to the couch. He hopped off the furniture and went running up to the wii. Pushing the disk into its slot, he stopped a moment, watching the machine eat it up. Sugawara settled himself down and left his crutch against the arm of the couch.

“Hinata?”

He turned around again, lips pursed before roaming back over. “I...I don’t remember where I played it.”

“No?” Sugawara watched the boy struggle a moment, feeling pity filling his features. He patted the couch, Hinata looked back up to him. “Why don’t we play some, maybe it’ll help jog your memory?”

“Okay!” Hinata nodded again, his little smile coming back. He climbed his way back on to the couch before Sugawara handed him the first player remote. He selected the game icon before clicking OK, Sugawara watched the screen fade to black. He had picked some sort of octopus puzzle game, Sugawara didn’t recognize it himself. He glanced sideways to the kid who turned the remote sideways, so he mimicked this. He had played the wii a few times before, but never really paid it much mind if it was just himself.

The title screen came up and Hinata clicked through it, going on to pick multiplayer. He picked some kind of bird character with a long stick in its wing and Sugawara decided on a light blue rabbit with a straw hat. They had names and titles apparently, but it didn’t seem to pertain much to the game itself.

A short tutorial popped up that thankfully Hinata couldn’t skip through, Sugawara squinted a bit as he read through it.

“Get the octopi in the box, match the colors! Don’t hit the rocks!”

Sounded easy enough.

They clicked through when the annotation popped up, they plunged into the game. Strange little red and blue round octopi fell from the top of the screen onto his board, Sugawara scrambled a moment to try and move them. His cursor only turned four in a clockwise motion, though, leaving him confused and forced to check what Hinata was doing.

The child seemed to have a better grip on it then him. Though he was slow, he looked like he knew what he was doing right off the bat. Sugawara looked back at his own and did his best to catch up.

It wasn’t long before the game over screen hit, and Hinata bounced in his place.

“I remember this game! It’s fun!” He beamed while clicking at the wii remote buttons, Sugawara laughed lightly form beside him.

“You’re pretty good at it!”

“Mm!”

“You’ve played it a bunch of times before?”

Hinata stopped again, waiting a few seconds before puffing his cheeks.

“Yes...but I don’t know where,” He said skeptically this time, his eyebrows furrowed together in a sort of frustrated pout. Sugawara patted his back, smiling encouragingly.

“Was it with Kageyama?”

“Hmmmm….”

“Noya?”

“....”

“Tanaka?”

Hinata’s head flopped to the side a little, one hand coming up to wipe under his nose.

“You’re sister?”

He froze up suddenly, catching Sugawara by surprise. He then straightened out of his hunch with both hands balled into fists.

“Yeah! I played this game with Natsu!” His face lit up with excitement, Sugawara grinned along proudly with almost as much excitement.

“You remembered!” Sugawara cheered while Hinata giggled, excited and happy over Sugawara’s excitement now. A thought dawned on him, and Sugawara plucked back up his remote. “Hey, how about we play some more, and try to remember more things?”

“Okay!” Hinata agreed immediately, taking his remote backup as well. Remembering things might just be the ticket to getting Hinata and Kageyama back to normal, if not giving them instructions or an idea on how to do that. Either way, remembering things didn’t seem to hurt, so he would encourage it anyways and tell Daichi when he came home.

\---------

The two played well into the evening, breaking a few times to get a snack or take a rest. Kageyama stopped by at one point when he was on his way to the bathroom, but didn’t stay long. When Sugawara took a break to make lunch and go ask him if he wanted any, he was fast asleep again.

Sadly, playing more video games had turned up nothing. It didn’t seem to spring up any memories for him, but Sugawara found no harm in their trying and ended up having fun anyways. After their final round Hinata had gone out into the backyard for a little while to run off some energy, Sugawara watched him from the couch inside. He’d found a cooking magazine in the kitchen earlier that he was looking through, but it was rather uninteresting.

Just when he looked up again to peek out the window, he heard the front door open.

“I’m back!”

“Daichi?”

Sugawara pulled himself up to a stand with his crutch, letting the magazine fall back on to the couch. He could hear Daichi’s footsteps paired with Hinata’s smaller ones, the low rumble of his voice breaking between as he spoke with Hinata’s higher pitched, soft tone.

He made his way to the kitchen, stopping in the doorway to look foggily at the big bag of vegetables sitting on the square table. Daichi lifted Hinata under his arms to sit up on the high stool at the table, the redhead giggled.

“Where’d all this come from?”

“The neighbors caught me,” Daichi explained while he let his coat fall off his shoulders, taking it into his hands. Daichi had taken long enough, it was no surprise something must have held him up. “Apparently this neighborhood isn’t just cottages anymore, farmers are here too. I told them we’re going to be living around here for a while and they wouldn’t let me leave without the stuff,” Sugawara watched the brunette roam back to the coat rack to hang up his coat before nipping his way to the table again.

Sugawara made his way over, examining the thick paper bag stuffed with different veggies. Oversized carrots, potatoes, some corn, and a mixture of a few different crops. The whole bag gave off a leafy and earthy scent, not something you’d expect in the middle of the winter.

“That was quite kind of them, we’ll have to return the favor somehow sometime,” Sugawara hummed as he pulled the edge of the bag to take a better look. Daichi pulled up a plastic bag from behind the big paper one, Sugawara glanced up to him.

“I also got the medication, mostly the reason why I was late.”

“Oh? Oh yeah! You were gone a while!”

“Heh, glad you noticed?”

“Me and Hinata were playing video games,” Sugawara explained with a little bit of a pout. “I didn't quite forget about you. Oh! But I have to tell you about something relating to that- I’ll tell you after though you go first.”

“Alright,” Daichi chuckled, giving a slight shake of his head while Sugawara snickered along. He went on to pull himself a chair quickly, Daichi followed..

“I went to the tiny pharmacy in town a bit after getting the veggies, it was pretty empty. I told them about what was going on with Kageyama, and they wanted me to bring him in. I couldn’t exactly do that now, and uh, I feel like it’s still a bit dangerous if we let the neighbors see the kids.”

“Understandable.”

“See I sort of had to bargain a little while until the lady at the desk told me to bring him in if it got worse, but to give him some tylenol and gravol, but not advil since kids can’t have that. She gave it to me for free, even when I told her I would pay, but man, I haven’t seen someone so stubborn since Noya.”

“That was still very nice of her!” Sugawara grinned while Dachi fished the pill bottles of his the thin plastic bag. “We’ll do as she says anyways, though. If Kageyama doesn't get better after this, it would probably be a good idea to take him in.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Hopefully it won’t come to that, anyways,” Daichi hummed, balling up the empty bag now in his hands and leaving the two inch tall bottles on the counter. Sugawara picked up one and read the label while he listened to Hinata hop off the stool and patter off, probably bored of their conversation already. He set it down a second later while Daichi stood back up.

“I’ll make supper then, since you did it yesterday.”

“Wait, wait, I didn’t get to tell you about my thing yet!”

“Oops, sorry,” Daichi sat himself back down, the two flashing grins again while Sugawara scooted in his chair more.

“We dug out the wii from in the cabinet under the television, and Hinata picked out a game he knew. After we played for a little while, he remembered his sister Natsu!”

“...He remembered her?”

“Yes! I think this is great! This could be the ticket to making them normal again,” Sugawara let his excitement bubble over while Daichi watched him carefully. It took a moment before the other teen grinned back, nodding along.

“Alright, then I guess our next goal is to help the two remember things?”

“Yes, maybe if we can get them to remember what happened to make them this way, we can reverse it,” Sugawara explained with hand motions, swirling his fingers over one another and making Daichi chuckle.

“We’ll just have to try our best on that. Luckily it doesn’t look like we have to rush with it just yet, but maybe a little surprise I have for tomorrow might help with that.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“A surprise,” Daichi’s eyebrows flew up a moment and Sugawara snorted.

“Alright I guess, I’ll wait for your surprise,” Sugawara crossed his arms playfully while Daichi stood once more, pulling the veggies towards himself.

“I’ll put these in the fridge. Uh, something else though, have you seen my phone?”

“Your phone?”

“I left it in the car, and I went to check if I took the battery out, but I couldn’t find it,” Daichi scooted out his chair a little, glancing to his lap almost like he would find it there before he glanced back up to Sugawara, “It’s a little concerning, since the battery might still be in it…”

“Well, I haven’t seen it, maybe it’s in one of your pockets or something?”

“Mm, I’ll have to check later. Keep an eye out for it for me, please?”

“Sure thing,” Sugawara collected up his crutch again before taking the pill bottles as well. Lying made him feel gross, but he had solid reasoning anyways. He’d have to find a better hiding spot for the phone soon, though, since his back pocket didn’t feel like quite the safe spot anymore if Daichi was looking for it.

“I’ll go try and give Kageyama some of this, I’m going to go visit him for a little while. You sure you’re fine with making supper?”

“Yeah, I can get it, you go on and see if Kageyama can eat something.”

“He’s going to have to, if he doesn’t eat anything he’ll starve,” Sugawara muttered while stuffing the bottles away into his pocket to free his hands.

\----------

“Doing any better now?”

“Mm,” Kageyama nodded back firmly, but the look reminded him too much of Kageyama’s older self. Even as a child, he didn’t like to trouble other people with his issues, even if people asked. Sugawara sat on the edge of Kageyama’s bed who sat up next to him, Sugawara had found him like this, looking out the window. Hinata had not gone outside again, but Kageyama explained that he just liked to look outside and could feel some of the cooler air coming in from the window cracks. Sugawara had offered to fix it, but the boy declined, saying that he enjoyed it.

Sugawara wasn’t sure if he wanted to bring up the mishap with mentioning the former teammates name, back downstairs. The result had been frightening, and did not seem to have the same effect it did on Hinata on getting him to remember Natsu. Sugawara couldn’t help but notice, however, that it felt as though Kageyama had changed just slightly after coming back upstairs. He held himself in a bit more of a reserved manor, fingers picking subconsciously at one another in his lap.

Kageyama coughed lightly into his arm, Sugawara smiled his way, “Do you think you’ll be down for supper tonight?”

“...Sure.”

“We got a bunch of fresh food for the neighbors, so it’ll be good tonight,” Sugawara went on, letting a bit of his soft excitement bubble over. Eating again was good, even if he was reluctant, he didn’t seem to be fighting it. Sugawara could imagine how hungry he must be from his difficulty holding food down.

“Also, before I forget,” Sugawara reached back into his pocket, retrieving the bottle he had stashed away there. Kageyama glanced at it curiously, head tilting slightly. “Why don’t you try taking one of these with supper? You’ll sleep the rest of the night afterwards, and it’ll stop you from throwing up, I promise.”

With curiosity and hope giving new light to his eyes, Kageyama muttered, “Really?”

“Yup, just one a day though, whenever you’re feeling sick,” Sugawara explained to him carefully, taking the bottle back and putting it into his pocket. “Me or Daichi will help you with it, so don’t worry about taking the on your own, just come looking for one of us.”

“Mm,” Kageyama nodded confidently, Sugawara was thankful and a bit surprised that Kageyama trusted him so easily. It was probably a bad sign, but maybe his parents had previously introduced him to medication like this when he was sick…?

“Have you seen this sort of thing before?” Sugawara tested, bringing the bottle back out. There was no harm in trying, the memory game had been an okay idea enough with Hinata. Kageyama studied the bottle a moment with renewed interest from Sugawara’s question, Sugawara held it out so he could read the label.

He shrugged a little again, uncertain, “It’s medication.”

“Have you seen anything like it before? Make you remember anything?”

Kageyama’s little forehead creased in thought, his head turned down and the knuckle of his index finger pressed to his lip. He was thinking hard about it, Sugawara couldn’t help but feel pride that they were so cooperative.

He looked back up again, his shoulders dropped, “I...I can’t really remember.”

Sugawara patted the boy’s head anyways, Kageyama blinked in surprise, “Keep on trying, but don’t worry about it too hard. Why don’t we go see how Daichi and Hinata are doing?”

“...Mm,” Kageyama’s head boobed again and Sugawara took his hand back, offering up another gentle smile that Kageyama’ didn’t quite return.


	11. ur in trouble now folks

Sugawara dropped himself onto the bed, letting out a long breath while he laid his crutch down. Thankfully they had gotten Kageyama to eat something after taking the gravol. It was enough to make him keep the food down like predicted, even if he only ate a bowl of steamed carrots. Sugawara was pretty sure it only worked because it knocked him out only fifteen minutes after, he couldn’t vomit if he wasn’t awake to do it.

Daichi had dug them out some clothing from the supply closet, which Sugawara was thankful to be able to sleep in that night. He sported a t-shirt three sizes too big belonging to Daichi’s father and a pair of baggy swim shorts which still smelt of chlorine. Daichi had gotten himself a t-shirt as well and some sweat pants with a weird grease stain on them. It wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing.

He could find a way to do laundry tomorrow. For now he hoisted his good leg up and then used his hands to help his other up on to the bed, looking over the make shift cast around his foot while Daichi fumbled in the closet. It looked like the swelling was going down somewhat, and he hadn't felt any sharp pains recently. It had boiled down to a low ache that hurt more if he bumped it, though it gave him more emotional pain than anything since it was annoying to go from the ability to walk to a weird limp.

His body jerked when Daichi tossed something up on to the bed, a big scrunched up comforter rolling over towards his side.

“I thought we could have a bit of reinforcement, even if we have the sleeping bags,” Daichi explained while roaming back over, Sugawara picked up a corner and scrutinized it a moment.

“It doesn’t smell weird or anything, that’s nice.”

“It was in a zipped up bag, so it should be good,” Daichi sat himself down on his side of the bed, making it bounce slightly before he helped roll out the blanket. It had a brown and cream floral pattern on one side and solid cream on the other.

“I hope you’re not the kind of guy to steal all the blankets,” Sugawara teased, sticking out his tongue while they flipped the fabric out over the bed.

“I don’t think I am,”

“Good, because I am,” The two kept their laughter down, but were grinning all the same. Sugawara had imagined that sleeping in the same bed as one of his teammates would be awkward, but Daichi seemed pretty okay with it.

“Is your leg feeling any better?”

“Hm?”

Daichi settled down next to him again, sniffing, “I spoke with the lady at the pharmacy about that as well, she uh, got a little angry about that too.”

“I told you I’d be alright,” Sugawara pouted out his bottom lip, scratching the back of his neck.

“I know, but she told me it was a hospital worthy thing, and the damage could be irreversible if it's bad enough and left alone...so uh..”

“Daichi, I’ll tell you if anything feels wrong,” Sugawara spoke gently, touching his arm. “I’m sure it’ll be okay, though. The swelling’s gone down, I just hurts a bit now and then.”

“Ah, well, just be careful with yourself, alright?”

“Look who’s worrying a lot, now,” Sugawara chuckled, giving Daichi’s stomach a playful jab. The boy shuddered but snickered, shooing Sugawara’s hand away.

“I know, I know, but we still need you. So... just be careful, alright?”

“Okay, I’ll be careful,” Sugawara couldn’t stop his sleepy smile, the affection made him feel light. It was nice to know Daichi was still worrying over him even when a million other things could be on his mind. It was also slightly scary to think that there might actually be lasting damage from this, but he tried not to think of it.

“Oh- One last thing,” Daichi caught him just as he lifted the cover again, Sugawara looked back his way questioningly. “I stopped by the local library, too.”

“I was wondering why you took so long today,” Sugawara chuckled back, he let his hands fall back into his lap while Daichi shrugged.

“I was looking into some books on… you know, the problem at hand.”

“Ah! Good idea!” Sugawara snapped the fingers of one hand, it seemed Daichi was on the ball with this one. He would have been googling it up by now if he still had his phone, though he didn’t know how much the internet could tell them about it, either.

“The librarian looked at me funny when I asked, but thankfully he helped me find a few things,” Daichi went on, his hands folded in front of him. “I couldn’t take anything out since I don’t have a card with them, but I skimmed some of it, and found some interesting things.”

“Any hints on getting things back to normal?” Sugawara asked hopefully, but Daichi shrugged uncertainly again.

“Most of it was folk lore, but it matched up well with what what’s going on with Hinata and Kageyama. It seems a bit unlikely, but a lot of them talked about curses and some weird religious stuff...”

“Well, at least we’ve got something to go off of,” Sugawara’s shoulders quivered in a yawn, “We’ll just have to do our best otherwise with what we’ve got. It can’t be forever, right?”

“Mm, of course,” Daichi agreed, but both the statement and answer felt empty. He wasn’t sure if it would actually go on forever or not, but didn’t every curse have some sort of cure? Daichi would have to do more research into the topic the next chance he got, since this was their only lead.

Jeez, the only choice was to keep hoping and follow a questionable trail again, it sort of bummed him out.

Without much else left to talk about, Daichi stifled a yawn in his hand and Sugawara looked instinctively to the bedside table. No clock, only the moon peeking through the top of their window to tell them how late it was.

Carefully he pushed himself down under the covers and into his sleeping bag, Daichi followed quietly doing the same. He reached over and pulled the rusted chain string of the lamp, plunging the room into darkness, then he spoke up quietly.

“...Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

\----------

“Oof-!”

“Daichi! Suga!”

Sugawara blinked awake when he felt the bed shift, hearing Hinata’s excited mewling beside him. He rolled under the covers- guiltily finding them all scrunched up to himself- and saw Hinata flopped over Daichi’s middle, half climbed up into the bed while Daichi’s eyes fluttered foggily. He sat himself up slowly and Hinata rolled into his lap before scrambling to the empty space between them. He wore a white t-shirt with a flower on one breast, it looked to be a woman's shirt. Daichi had to give him something, Sugawara imagined that his father's clothing would be definitely too big for him.

“What’s up, kiddo?” Daichi mumbled and Sugawara pushed himself to sit as well. The redheads hair looked even messier than usual, but his face was far from tired.

“It snowed! Outside!”

“Oh?” Sugawara leaned sideways some to look out the window, squinting in the bright morning light that filtered through. The room was far from warm, anyways, it was no surprise it probably snowed last night. Hinata nodded again before he crawled over to Sugawara’s side of the bed and dropped over the edge, traversing to the window in a split second to peek out.

Daichi muttered something while he got himself up out of bed. Sugawara tossed the blankets off of himself only to shiver, rubbing his arms. He bent back and plucked his sweater off the floor beside the bed while Daichi journeyed around and over to the window.

“Whoo, jeez, it really did snow,” He commented while Hinata stood on his toes in front of him, only just being able to peek out into the yard from his height. Sugawara pack himself into his grey blue sweater before he collected his crutch and got up as well.

“Can I go out and play in it?”

“Well, let’s eat breakfast first, then see if we can find you some proper snow gear.”

“Okay!” Hinata grinned while Daichi flattened down his hair with a hand. He ushered the boy off with a little push and Hinata went toddling out the door, Sugawara met Daichi half way.

“You think we’ll have to shovel?”

“Probably a bit, but I’ll handle it.”

“You can’t go on and handle everything for me now,” Sugawara nudged his friend’s arm, Daichi nudged him back.

“You can handle breakfast, then, and checking up on Kageyama.”

“Well, I guess that’s fair enough. Try not to freeze out there.”

“It’s freezing enough in here as is, I’ll be good,” Daichi clucked, Sugawara smiled back.

\---------

Things were looking up when they got Kageyama downstairs. He ate most his breakfast and stationed himself on the couch in a blanket cocoon. Hinata sat at his side chattering about the wii game that he had turned on, though Sugawara was pretty sure Kageyama was half asleep already again, or at least he didn’t find it too interesting.

Sugawara sat down on the other end of the couch where he could watch Daichi out the window. The snow had to be at least knee deep, but he worked away at clearing it with a shovel. The end of the handle was broken off, but he used it anyways.

While he watched Daichi work, stuffed into his thick jacket and what looked to be a towel wrapped around his head, he squinted and listened to Hinata and Kageyama talk quietly.

“I’m super good at this one, you can watch while I do the story one and play when you feel better.”

“Okay, I don’t really know how to play anyways.”

“Here! You can watch,” Hinata held out his hands while he tapped on the wii remote, Kageyama bent in a little with sleepy eyes. The screen flickered while Hinata played, Sugawara watched them curiously. He had not gotten used to the domestic attitude between the two of them, nobody had yelled or hit the other the entire time they were here. It was nice, but also unnerving.

“I played a bunch of this with Natsu,” Hinata continued on recounting, Kageyama stared over to the tv groggily. “I’m good at it.”

“Natsu…?”

“My sister!” Hinata seemed to be having trouble multitasking between talking with Kageyama and playing the game that slowly intensified, but he pushed on. “You’ve seen her before, you...you were really weird to her,” Hinata paused a moment as squids overflowed on the screen and a game over dropped down like a curtain. He seemed to be thinking, but Kageyama had already seemed to have dropped it for something else.

“What’s Daichi doing?”

Sugawara blinked back into realization before looking up again. Daichi was picking himself out of the snow, using his shovel for help. A sad chuckle slipped through the back of his throat; it was no surprise Daichi would fall victim to the slippery weather. Sugawara would have to make him something warm to drink for when he came back inside.

“Shoveling, in his own way.”

“Looks cold out there.”

“I’ll go out later and make a snowman!” Hinata declared, leaning in towards Kageyama to share his excitement with his eyes still pinned on the tv screen. “I’ll make sure you can see it out your window, and I’ll find some flowers to put on it too!”

“Alright,” Kageyama agreed, slowly leaning against the back of the couch again while Hinata clicked further on his remote. Sugawara took his chance to look to the brunette from over Hinata’s head, catching his gaze.

“Hinata was talking about Natsu, though. You remember her, right?”

Kageyama stared a moment before his hand came up and scratched his chin, uncertainty in his face.

“I...I might remember something like that…”

“You met her,” Hinata said confidently while he started a new game. “I know you have!”

“I’m not sure I remember really,”

“Try your best to, you certainly couldn’t have seen her that long ago, right?”

“Ah…” Kageyama shifted, pulling the blanket tighter over his shoulders. “She looks just like you, right?”

“Yeah, but smaller!”

“I didn’t know people could get that much smaller.”

“I-I’m not that small! They can get smaller! Have you ever even seen a baby?” Hinata pouted, but Sugawara could see something spark between them. Little bits of their older selves shining through, this was a good sign.

“I’m even taller than you.”

“Only by a little!” Hinata whined, forcing his frustration to play harder in his game. “You’re not even tall enough to reach the freezer either, so there’s no point!”

“No point?”

“Nope!”

“...” Kageyama looked vaguely confused, but dropped it with an inaudible mutter. The boy pulled his knees closer to his chest under the blanket, staring off with half lidded eyes.

“Okay...but what about Tanaka?”

“Who?” Hinata cocked his head, Kageyama looked back up to Sugawara.

“Noya…?”

“..uh…”

“Tsukishima?”

Kageyama suddenly recoiled, his tongue stuck out. Panic flashed through Sugawara when he thought the child would be running off, but Kageyama shook his head.

“I don’t like that name.”

“Oh? What’s wrong with it?”

“...I...Mmf…” Kageyama squinted and shook his head again. “It doesn’t sound good.”

“He’s much much taller than you, Hinata.”

“Hey- I still have lots of time to grow!” Hinata defended, giving an over exaggerated pout. “I don’t understand why the two of you want to pick on me today.”

Sugawara chuckled lightly and ruffled Hinata’s hair in apology. He didn’t want to pick on the two of them, but pulling out things that would bug their older selves seemed to elicit the biggest reaction.

“Well...hm… What about Coach Ukai?”

Kageyama took a moment before shaking his head.

“Takeda?”

The same reaction. Sugawara took a minute to think of people that they may have knew that he didn’t. Or, at least knew better.

“Hmm...what about people over at Aoba?” Sugawara didn’t remember a lot of the names of the members over there, but he knew a few, and Kageyama suddenly seemed interested, peeking his way.

“Aoba?”

“Isn’t that also a name though?” Hinata didn’t seem to recognize this at all, continuing on with his game.

“It’s a high school, our team went on a tournament against them a while ago,” Sugawara explained even if he was pretty sure there were more points in the sentence the children didn’t understand than they could recognize. “Hmmm...there was that Iwaizumi fellow? Their ace, maybe.”

“Iwaizumi?” Kageyama repeated, sitting a bit straighter.

“You remember him?”

“...A little…” Kageyama looked down into his lap. “He was nice to me.”

“Ah! Well what about that Oikawa guy?”

Almost like he’d flicked a switch, Kageyama’s eyes shot open and he stared blankly. No, not blankly, he was thinking. He sat still like a little statue, after a minute of silence Hinata stole a quick glance his way skeptically.

“Kageyama?”

“...Kageyama?” He didn’t move, Sugawara felt a twinge of fear strike him. He reached a hand behind Hinata and touched his shoulder, only for Kageyama to flinch away like he had been slapped and break out of his trance. The child scrambled off the couch and was on his feet in seconds, taking the blanket with him as he took in quick breaths.

“K-Kageyama?”

“I’m sorry,” The child breathed unsteadily, his shoulders sagged under the blanket. He suddenly looked much smaller and tired, his hair stuck up in flips in a few different areas. He gagged with a shiver, Sugawara quickly bent to pick up his crutch. He hoisted himself to a stand, passing quickly in front of Hinata as he hit a loose screen.

“Come on, how about you go lay down for a little?”

“O...okay.”


	12. thats?? kinda gay

Once Kageyama was off in bed, Sugawara boiled the kettle and made some tea. He felt uneasy- well, a better word to describe it would be horrible. He would have to find a different way to get them remembering, picking at their older selves bad spots didn’t feel right anymore.

Just as he finished pouring hot water into two mugs, the front door slid open. Daichi swiftly stepped in and shut it behind himself, letting out a long breath.

“There, done.”

“You were out there a while,” Sugawara glanced over his shoulder, Daichi pulled his makeshift hat off his head. It was indeed a hand towel with a duck pattern. His cheeks and nose were tinted red, snow still clung to his bangs and shoulders. He looked tired, but his eyes were bright and cheerful.

“The driveways long, and I had to do a few little other things,” Daichi slid off his sneakers that were probably drenched through, his coat came after. “But it should be alright now, if it doesn’t snow again.”

“Well, good thing I made some tea, you look frozen.”

“Ooh, great, I am,” Undressed from his outdoor clothes, Daichi ambled over while Sugawara set the kettle down. “The kids are still in the living room?”

“Kageyama went back upstairs to sleep, but Hinata’s still there. Do you think it’d be alright for him to go outside?”

“Sure, I can probably get together some warm enough stuff.”

“Another towel?”

“I’m sure I can get something different, but hey, it worked for me,” Daichi snickered, Sugawara handed him a mug.

“The surprise thing I said yesterday…” Daichi started, Sugawara shifted to turn to him while grabbing his mug. “It’ll have to wait until tomorrow because of the snow.”

“Oh? Man, you’re killing me now,” Sugawara smirked, adjusting the crutch under his arm. “What’s snow got to do with it?”

“You’ll see, I think the surprise will be worth the wait for you,” Daichi offered a frisky grin, Sugawara couldn’t help his own.

“Alright, I guess I can wait. We’ll see if Kageyama can be up and participate in this surprise with us. It looks like he’s really been getting better.”

“That’s good! I told you it wasn’t anything to worry too much over.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but you know how I worry,” Sugawara tucked his mug in closer to himself.

“It’s alright, it’s nice how much you worry, you really pay attention.”

“Oh- it’s just how I am, you know,” Sugawara flapped a hand and laughed in embarrassment, he felt his cheeks heating up. Coming to his rescue, the quick patter of Hinata’s feet entered the kitchen.

“Sugawara, can I go out now?” Hinata’s head came bobbing around the table, Sugawara shifted to face him.

“Sure thing! Daichi’s just going to get you some stuff to keep you warm, alright?”

“Yeah! Okay!” Hinata nodded, sporting his usual big grin.

“Let’s go get you a good hat or something, I’m sure we’ve got something lying around,” Daichi took a quick few gulps of his tea, cringing a moment as he had forgotten how hot it was before he set it down and began to usher Hinata off. Sugawara watched them go, feeling himself soften. Daichi was doing better than he expected with the kids, it made this little trip of theirs feel even a tiny bit more rewarding.

\---------

Sugawara looked over the back of the couch from his usual spot and watched Hinata rolling a ball of snow about the size of his head. What clothing Daichi had gotten him wasn’t that bad, even though he was wearing a pair of oven mitts stuffed into the sleeves of the too big jacket and the even bigger sweater. He wore a knitted band around his head that covered up his ears and forehead, so he guessed it would work well enough.

Daichi came walking into the room in just his t-shirt and sweatpants now, since he had sacrificed his sweater to the child. He had a blanket awaiting him on the couch anyways, his half empty mug in one hand while he eased himself to a sit next to it. Sugawara looked away from the window, his arm resting over the back of the couch.

“Better than your first shot.”

“Thanks,” Daichi spread part of the blanket over his lap, resting the mug in it next with one hand kept under the handle. He used the other to fumble with the remote, Sugawara studied his hand carefully from where he sat. The bandage that clung to it looked a bit weathered, but Daichi had done a good job at keeping it clean.

“Have you checked up on your hand?”

“Hm?”

“To make sure your cut didn’t get infected,” Sugawara tapped a finger on the hand that gripped the cup, Daichi pulled it up carefully and left his mug balanced in his lap

“It feels alright,” Daichi turned the hand and flexed his fingers, Sugawara reached up to it and took his palm into his own. He fiddled with the knot for a few seconds before catching himself, his hands recoiled awkwardly.

“Ooh, sorry, I didn’t ask.”

“It’s alright, uh, I don’t mind,” Daichi shrugged, Sugawara carefully took his hand again. He undid the knot with nimble fingers before sliding the bandages off, letting them fall into his lap. Carefully he examined Daichi’s palm, gently pressing his thumb over the tender skin. The area around the cut had whitened, a bit of pink showed through.

“It should be okay, just keep washing it and stuff. I think you can leave the bandage off now, though,” He released his palm, Daichi took it back with a little grunt and scrutinized it. Sugawara stole another moment to check up on Hinata who was working on his second snowball.

“I’ll do that then, thanks,” Daichi collected the loose bandage and Sugawara hummed, looking back to him. “Your leg is still fine?”

“Yeah, hasn’t been hurting too much,” Sugawara bounced his knee a tiny bit, Daichi tipped his head. That was a lie, but he didn’t want to be worrying him. A fracture or sprain of some sort in his ankle would take a while to heal and stop hurting, but it didn’t feel any worse. It sure had hurt when he first got it, he was more surprised than anything he hadn’t passed out. That would have thrown a wrench into their plan, he would just have to be thankful he had some sort of good pain tolerance, (even if he had been crying pretty hard). He perked a little when curiosity arose, glancing sideways to the crutch lying at the couches side.

“How come you had that crutch here, anyways?”

“The crutch? I sprained my foot the last time I was here, fell down the stairs,” Daichi waved a hand, picking his cup back up. “We left it here just encase.”

“Good idea with that, I couldn’t imagine having to get around without it,” Sugawara patted his thigh. Daichi clicked the TV remote to flip through the channels, he went through all three before he settled on the second. A news anchor stood and spoke about weather predictions for the east shore, dressed in a nice suit.

“We used to come down here a lot more often, so we left stuff around to make trips easier,” Daichi explained, his fingers absentmindedly played with the seam on the side of his pants. “The house used to be in much nicer condition, but I guess the years weren’t very nice to it while we were gone.”

“How come you stopped coming?” Sugawara looked over the back of the couch again. Hinata was boosting his second snowball on top of the first, the snowman was about as big as the child. It was pretty impressive for a kid his age, he must have had a lot of energy to burn off. Sugawara looked back when he realized Daichi hadn't answered him. The boy shifted a little, but just shrugged, looking between Sugawara and the television a second.

“I- I dunno, we just sort of stopped,” His shoulders hopped again, Sugawara folded his hands in his lap.

“I haven’t been out in the countryside in a while myself,” Sugawara went on, quieting his tone. “We went camping out a few times, but never got a cottage.”

“Ah, yeah, my dad inherited it, so we put it to use,” Daichi explained lightly, the tv changed to a news story about a three vehicle crash with a truck somewhere on a highway. It was starting to feel warm between them on the couch, Sugawara shifted to scoot in a little closer, Daichi didn’t move. “I think my dad kept paying for the electricity out of spite, since my mom said we probably wouldn’t be coming out again, but he didn't want to believe her. It’s a bit grungy now.”

“It’s nice, though, I don’t mind being out here,” Sugawara smiled, Daichi gave a sound caught somewhere between a grunt and a voice crack. He recognized his mistake quickly and struggled a second before settling. Sugawara had to stifle his laughter, and chose to go on anyways. “Even if it’s not under the best circumstances, I guess it’s nice to have a break from it all, even just for a little while.”

“Y...yeah, it’s nice to be away,” Daichi kept his grin, the tv changed again to news about someone’s cat being found, lost in a drain pipe. Sugawara leaned into him a little, he felt Daichi stiffen up at first then relax. Their shoulders leaned against one another, their eyes locked to the front, watching the television studiously to have some sort of excuse not to look at one another.

He was starting to feel sleepy. Even with their relaxed lifestyle in the countryside, taking care of Hinata and Kageyama was quite the job. He felt a bit of a rustle when Daichi moved his hand, he set aside his mug on the coffee table at the couch's side then adjusted the blanket to flop it over Sugawara’s lap. It was warmed from being on Daichi, Sugawara set his hands over it. He looked Daichi’s way to thank him but was caught off guard by the scene in front of him.

Daichi looked as though someone had splashed red paint over his face, the blush went right up to his ears. He looked stuck in the middle of being embarrassed and afraid, Sugawara pulled back some with a dint of panic.

“Oh- Daichi are you alright?”

“I-I’m good!” Daichi breathed tightly, his shoulders quivered.

“I...I can move if you want me to-”

“No! It’s okay!” Sugawara stopped himself from scooting over, glancing down to his lap. Daichi’s hand sat on his leg, his cut peeking out from his palm near his thumb. His fingers were shaking slightly, Sugawara felt himself deflate after a second.

“I...I miss the team.”

“...Mm…” Daichi hummed solemnly, Sugawara sighed through his nose. He had been trying to push the thought to the back of his head, for the better of all of them, but it was starting to ache. It was only a few days now, yet he could feel the difference it left. It would be nice to see Noya and Tanaka rough housing again, Asahi cowering, Yamaguchi and Tsukishima pissing Kageyama and Hinata off...maybe even see his parents a little while.

Perhaps getting closer with Daichi just a bit more would help him fill in that hole, even for just a short time. Or maybe that was just an excuse he was making up.

Sugawara leaned in, he took his other hand and crossed it over himself. Carefully, he put his hand on Daichi’s arm, first just letting his fingers poke the fabric testingly before he gently rested his palm on him. Daichi leaned in as well in response, Sugawara found it funny how he could feel his blush from how close they were.

“I was really hoping that we could just be happy here, but I don’t know if I really wanted to be away from all of them after all,” Daichi muttered, his fingers fidgeted a little when one of them brushed Sugawara’s. “I’m sure this will all be over soon.”

“Soon doesn’t feel like it’s coming too soon.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence, the news reporter’s voice broke in as just dull murmur to tell them about an attempted robbery. Sugawara felt warm, tired, and just a bit more happy. He didn’t move when he felt Daichi’s fingers crawl over his palm, sneaking between his own without effort.

“If it doesn’t go well when we go home, I’d be more than happy with running away with you again.”

“I hope it won’t be bad, but I would run away with you again, too.”

“I…” Daichi swallowed thickly, Sugawara barely noticed when he started to shake. “I…l...love y-you.”

Sugawara moved his head, it felt like Daichi was going to spring away until he pressed his forehead and nose to his cheek. His skin was soft, he smelt clean.

“You finally said it,” He laughed gently against him, felt his grip tighten over his hand, “And I love you too…” Sugawara trailed off and pulled himself away a little when he felt something run over his nose, Daichi moved away as well and slapped a hand up over one side of his face. Tears slid down over his cheeks, the teen cringed and Sugawara felt lost.

“I-I’m sorry,”

“N-no, no that’s not bad! You didn’t have any way of knowing-”

“Not that,” Daichi sniffed, his sleeve ran over his face roughly a second. “I’m just...I’m really sorry about taking you out here, I’ve even been lying to you and being so gross-”

“Hey now, you have to give me at least a little credit for all this. If you didn’t drive us out here, I’d probably be sitting in a jail cell right now!”

Daichi sniffed, his shoulders quivered and Sugawara rubbed his arm. Daichi seemed to settle a little when Sugawara showed he wasn’t angry or upset, so Sugawara smiled.

“Hey.”

“...Mm?”

“You know I could never be angry with you for any of this,” Sugawara gently reassured, voice hardly above a whisper, “I’m happy, if anything. I’m happy that you saved us, and I’m happy to just be with you.”

Daichi’s face still tinted red from crying, it seemed to darken even more as the teen peered meekly back at him. His smiled was droopy, almost sick.

“You keep saying that, but we can’t ever go home.”

“I know, and it really sucks,” Sugawara admitted, watching the teen blink, “But we can make a new home. Even out in this rickety little house, we’ve survived. The team’s still cheering us on, and I know they’ll miss us.”

“And I miss them.”

“Me too,” He sighed a little, “But we gave it all up for this, for our team. You’re still fine with it?”

“I’m okay if you’re okay.”

Sugawara couldn’t help but grin again, the homesickness piled up in his heart like hot tar. He settled with leaning in slowly and giving Daichi a gentle peck on the cheek, feeling the other boy shift and listen to his soft sound of surprise. Moments later he pecked him back, his winter chapped lips scraping against his cheek lightly.

They giggled and kept exchanging the little friendly pecks. The bits of affection warmed him, even if it wouldn’t do a thing to change the lump of worry for their future sitting in his stomach. They were hopelessly doomed, depending on each other was all they had left.

Sugawara paused a moment when something blinked back into memory, Daichi butted his head against Sugawara’s gently.

“Wait, what was that before about lying-”

A loud bang not even a second later interjected, Sugawara nearly fell off the couch from how hard he flinched. Daichi had to grab on to the back of the sofa and the two of them sat up straight, their heads whipped to the window just behind their heads.

“Mom- Suga!”

They sat staring for a few more seconds, quite lost and stuck in the initial shock. Hinata clung to the window, boosted up on his elbows. He must have jumped and hit the glass, he was grinning widely.

“Look! Look!” Hinata let go and disappeared, but they could still hear his muffled excitement. He was on his tip toes so his hands were visible, motioning clumsily off behind himself. Sugawara was still caught up in accidentally being called mom while Daichi shakily got up on his knees, looking out the back window. Surprise filled him again, but he quickly motioned for Sugawara to come up as well.

He bent next to Daichi, peeking out the frosted window pane. Not very far off across the big yard, just at the edge of the trees, a herd of deer moved. They walked with gentle steps through the snow, a few looked over to the house, probably after hearing Hinata’s attack on the window. There were four big deer and two fawns, flecked with snow and their fur fluffed up against the cold.

Hinata’s snow man stood finished a few feet off, browning flowers stuffed messily on to the top of its head and on its face for a mouth and eyes. The TV said something about two delinquents kidnapping children, Sugawara and Daichi both turned around.


	13. intruder alert oh shit

Kageyama had started coughing. It wasn’t too noticeable at first, so Sugawara could not quite pinpoint when it started, but it was certainly there. After a bath in the morning (separate from Hinata) to try and help something, they changed his bed set with what they had. He couldn’t eat much for breakfast, and the gravol had stopped working.

It was stressing, to say the least.

They also decided on moving Hinata into the bedroom with them. After the newsflash last night scaring the both of them, going out to the hospital had become a last resort plan, even though Sugawara didn’t feel too great about it. They didn’t need both children getting sick, so isolating them off as much as possible, even if it was cruel, was their only option.

Sugawara devoted more of his time during this to try and keep Hinata happy and occupied. It was obvious he was growing bored and worried over being without the only other child around. Sugawara tried his best to not let Hinata on to know how serious the situation was starting to get, while Kageyama didn’t seem to ask at all what was going on with himself. He had slowly stopped talking as the coughing came on, or maybe it had been since Sugawara had gotten him to remember more, he couldn’t really tell with that either.

Sugawara sat next to Hinata on the couch, their usual spot. Hinata boredly watched the show that was going on that Sugawara hadn’t bothered paying attention to. He was pretty sure it was too old for Hinata to understand anyways, but it was either this, the news, or the Spanish sports channel.

Daichi had disappeared off somewhere after helping with Hinata’s bath that morning, he said he needed to do a bit more lawn work, so Sugawara didn’t pay much mind into it. Hinata kicked his feet over the edge of the couch, bundled into a shirt that was too big for him with a clip on the back of the neck to keep it on.

“The deer were pretty the other day,” Sugawara commented and Hinata perked, his orange locks bouncing. He nodded, they bounced more.

“Mm! Yeah! They were big,” Hinata confirmed, his lips pursing. Something seemed to catch his attention, he scratched his cheek.

“Hey, what were you and Daichi doing anyways?”

“Hm? When?”

“I jumped up and it looked like Daichi was sad.”

“He was just being a little weird, you know how he is,” Sugawara snickered, patting Hinata’s head.

“But you were being weird too…?”

“Weird?”

“You like Daichi a lot.”

“Hey, that’s not weird,” Sugawara crossed his arms with a pout, Hinata looked surprised. “You remember us, we’re good teammates!”

“You remind me of my mom and dad,” Hinata poked at his own cheek. Sugawara couldn’t help his face heating up. It was good Hinata was remembering his home life more frequently now, and being compared to his well-established parents felt...nice. Really nice. He liked the sound of it, a lot.

“I like you a lot, too!” Hinata announced, Sugawara glanced back to him. “You’re really great, Suga!”

“Aw, Hinata, you’ve been pretty great too, you’re such a good kid,” Sugawara beamed, bringing his hand back up to ruffle the boy’s hair again. Hinata grinned before pushing in and hugging Sugawara’s waist. He buried his head into Sugawara’s arm, Sugawara’s heart melted.

“Sorry for calling you mom yesterday, don’t tell Kageyama, he’ll make fun of me,” Hinata slipped in with a quick mutter, Sugawara ran his fingers through the boy’s hair, too caught up in the moment to care.

“No, no, it’s okay, why not dad instead? I’d be good with that,” He whispered back, Hinata giggled against his side. He jumped a little when he heard the front door open, forced out of his contented state in his surprise.

“Really, I insist-”

“Uh- hey- alright okay-”

Sugawara immediately shifted, Hinata released him and looked back at the doorway. That definitely wasn’t a voice he recognised, nor was it one that he wanted coming into their house. As he scrambled to get his crutch, the front door shut and Daichi went on rambling incomprehensibly at whoever their visitor was, Sugawara motioned Hinata behind himself who crawled swiftly across the couch to do so.

“Really, it’s okay, we’ve got plenty-”

“Nonsense! You’ve got a growing youngster in here, heck, you’re just a little thing yourself,” The rowdy and upbeat voice rang through the house like gunshots, Sugawara backed up a little only to jump in tune with Hinata when something heavy was dropped on the table.

“Where’s he running around at, anyways?”

“Uh...Suga?”

“Stay here, Hinata,” Sugawara muttered swiftly to the child, giving his head a pat before he started out of the living room. Mentally preparing himself for whatever could be lying around the corner, he came up to the small doorway before carefully leaning in and peeking out into the kitchen; he hadn’t realized that after nearly a week of isolation in their small house that he had become a bit jumpy to people invading it.

Standing by the table that had a fresh bag full of more veggies was a tall, scrawny looking woman. Her smile lines ran deep and her neck sagged; she looked old, old enough to be a young grandparent, yet something was strangely lively about her in the cold winter. She wore a thick parka and a knitted hat along with a satchel over one shoulder, both Daichi and her had rosy cheeks from just being outside. Daichi was flashing him a look that just screamed his apology, the woman’s face turned to confusion.

“Oh, this is the other fella?”

“Uh, hi there!” Sugawara greeted stiffly, trying his best to pull up a cheerful tone while he grinned. God, he really didn’t want to limp out there like the embarrassment he was, but he didn’t have much of another choice. Doing his best to make the situation look not as bad as it was, he eased himself out into the kitchen area, all eyes pinned on his nervous frame. “Who might you be?”

“One of your neighbors,” The lady introduced; she didn’t seem fazed much by Sugawara’s appearance and crutch, or at least she didn’t comment. “The names Alli.”

“Hello! I’m Sugawara, this is Daichi, who you’ve probably already met?”

“Yep! Just outside,” She grinned proudly, “I just thought I’d come and drop off some more food for you folks, just getting settled in!”

“That’s so nice of you, did you drop of the first bag by chance?”

“You know it, it was hard enough to track this guy down after he tried to run off, you must keep a tight leash on him,” She laughed, a hand landed on Daichi’s shoulder heavily that made the boy shudder. Sugawara laughed along lightly; She didn’t seem dangerous, just nosy and friendly. Sugawara had to wonder if she could have seen the news article, but was hoping desperately that that wasn’t why she was here.

“I thought I saw a little tyke before running around your yard…?”

“Oh, yes, that’s Hinata. Uh, Hinata! Can you come in here?” He looked back over his shoulder, his voice queuing Hinata’s quick footsteps over the hardwood floor to come in a quick frenzy behind him. They slowed once Hinata was in the hallway, creeping up behind him and watching with a curious look. He smiled reassuringly, Hinata came up to his side to hold on to his pant leg.

“Hinata, this is our neighbor Alli.”

“What an adorable little scamp! Hey there buddy!” Alli cooed as she bent down a little from across the room, Hinata still shied away behind Sugawara’s leg.

“H...Hi.”

“He’s a little shy,” Sugawara smiled and leaned to ruffle Hinata’s hair, the boy leaned into him.

“I hope he won’t be too shy, since I’ve got something for him,” The woman grinned, her hands went to her satchel and flipped open the top from one of its buttons. Hinata peeked out more with a curious look, looking up to Sugawara who was one in the same.

“Oh! Goodness, you didn’t have to-”

“Nonsense! Who visits the neighbors without something for the little one?” Taking a second to shuffle through all the items in her bag- it was pretty stuffed- it didn’t take long for her to be out with what she had. Plucking up the material from the bag, she held a puffy, brownish, bubble coat. Surprise overtook them, but then guilt belted Sugawara in the chest; it was stupid to think that nobody would see Hinata running around in a coat ten sizes too big for him, they must look so terribly irresponsible.

“A coat!” Hinata spoke out from behind him, his face pulled up into a grin.

“You’ll have to try it on little guy, I wasn’t sure what your size was,” She beamed while she knelt down on one knee, Hinata looked up to Sugawara as if looking for permission. Sugawara gave him a little nod and a push, Hinata went stumbling off towards the woman.

Both Daichi and Sugawara watched like hawks while she held it out for the boy and helped him get it on. Sugawara could tell just from the corner of his eye that Daichi was ready to sprint at her the second any funny business went down, which felt rude of them, but there were no taking chances now.

Once Hinata had it on and zippered up, he turned to face the both of them again. The jacket fit like a glove, Hinata looked filled to the brim with happiness as he showed the coat off and waved an arm.

“Why, Hinata, it looks lovely on you!”

“It fits!”

“It should do you good for the rest of the season,” The woman chimed, giving Hinata’s head a pat who accepted it graciously. “And keep you good and warm, too.”

“Really, we can’t thank you enough,” Daichi started, approaching the woman. “Did you want anything in return-”

“Oh heavens no, the smile on his face is all I want,” The woman helped herself back up to a stand, patting off her knees. Hinata spun around on his heels to face her, bouncing giddily.

“Thank you, miss!”

“You’re very welcome Hinata!”

“If you need anything ever, uh- miss Alli, don’t be afraid to stop by,” Daichi gave a nod of his head while Hinata went huddling back up to Sugawara, the coat puffed out enough to make his arms stick out the slightest.

“Same for you, Daichi,” Alli nodded back, “Don’t be afraid to come see me. I live just down the street to the west of here.”

“We’ll be sure to remember you,” Sugawara promised while Hinata turned back around to look back at the woman giddily. “Why don’t you stay for some tea for a while?”

“Sorry, I would love to, but I’ve got to get going,” She flipped the top of her bag shut again, “I might not have tykes of my own running around anymore, but I’ve got enough animals that need tending to to make up for that. Thank’s for letting me in, I’ll see you around!”

\--------

The woman was gone just as fast as she had came, riding off in a big white pickup truck down their graveled driveway and leaving with a vague memory that Sugawara couldn’t believe was real. Hinata was ecstatic about the new coat, and Sugawara was pretty happy for him too; even though Daichi had been caught outside wearing the embarrassment of an outfit he had, Hinata would be surviving the cold winter a bit better.

Now he just had to feel bad that they hadn’t gotten one for Kageyama. He would make note to try and find one for him once he was feeling better, but it was just a good thing they had been able to keep it on the downlow when Alli had wormed her way into their house. It was strange how persistent she was, but Sugawara could only pin it on the different culture out in the country.

Sugawara distracted himself with these thoughts while sitting on the shut toilet in the washroom, his leg propped up on the side of the tub. He had just gotten out of the shower, dressed in a different pair of swim shorts and another shirt that was too big for him. He hadn’t really gotten a shower the entire time they were there, he’d washed himself off with a face cloth now and then to keep any smell at bay, but he could only go so long before he started to miss a real shower.

Sugawara had been paranoid, though, since the splint around his ankle probably didn’t like water too much. He’d showered while keeping his foot out of it- nearly falling several times - but now was scrutinizing it in the dim bathroom light.

Rust stains ran down the walls and the remnants of cobwebs clung in every corner. The window near the far end had torn curtains pulled and a jagged break in the glass near the bottom that let the cold in. Daichi had stuffed a rag through it, but the room remained permanently chilled from the rest of the house, which had made exiting the bath a little less desirable.

The swelling wasn’t any worse than before, but it was smothered in a layer of bandage and duct tape. Picking at the edges, he tried not to bite his tongue as he started to tear the tape away. There could have probably been something better to do the job that wouldn’t have torn off his leg hair, but he couldn’t blame Daichi too much.

After a bit of coaxing and small breaks, the bruised skin underneath slowly started to reveal itself, like a ring around his ankle. It was a hard black near the middle with the edges going off into a purple and starting to yellow; it made him wince and look away, before dragging his eyes back. It at least looked it was healing around the edges, but it was no wonder it hurt so bad, something was definitely broken in there. Not that he didn’t already know that, but looking at the spot now was making him sick.

He took off the bandages and tape anyways, balling them up before dropping them into the bathroom garbage. It had left a strange smell lurking, so putting it on back felt like a bad idea. With careful hands, he grazed fingers over the bruise, he shivered at the flickers of pain that went right to the bone. It was painfully obvious now, he had ruined his ankle after breaking it and running on it anyways. He had been lucky when escaping that the police underestimated him for only being a high school student, but karma always seemed to have its way.

Sucking in air, he bent over his knee and tugged open the door of the cabinet under the sink. He was thankful when a cloud of dust didn’t blow in his face, Daichi had already been in there the other day and put the plastic container full of first aid stuff away. He was thankful he had reminded him at last minute to bring it before they left his parents home, going without the little essentials would have made things a bit more annoying. Sugawara hauled it out with one hand, carefully letting it clunk out on to the floor before dragging it in front of himself.

He lifted the lid, setting it off to the side before he started to rummage through. He found a roll of bandage and some more tape, but sadly didn’t find any painkillers like he hoped he might have. He would have to survive for now, but the risk of infection was starting to itch at the back of his mind.

He was just about to put the lid back on when something caught his eye, glinting on the edge of the shadow Sugawara’s head cast. He shuffled a few things aside, pulling a face cloth that spilled out three sharp razors that clamored on the bottom of the bin, glaring up at him like bright eyes.


	14. the small ball of fury awakens!

Left down in the living room with Hinata again, Sugawara kept his ravaging thoughts inwards while watching the television without even paying attention. He hadn’t had a moment to ask about what he found in the box at all that night. With Hinata stuck at their sides and Daichi still running around all evening trying to get whatever house work he was doing done, by the time they were in bed Daichi had been too quick to fall asleep. He would have liked to say the stinging assumption he made after seeing them had floated away with his thoughts after the night, but they still clung to him like a wet blanket.

He had checked up on Kageyama again that morning, who hadn’t wanted to eat breakfast. After sitting and chatting with him in a more one sided conversation, he finally let Kageyama fall back asleep, forced to leave him be with the guilty churning in his stomach. There hadn’t been much more he could do for him, he would have to bring it up with Daichi again later.

Hinata wasn’t too energetic that morning on the couch, either. The previous day’s running around outside had left him tuckered out, and Sugawara could tell he still wasn’t used to sleeping with them in the same room, so he was lying up against Sugawara’s side with an arm over him. Sugawara wasn’t sure if the child was asleep or not, but he had been pretty quiet the whole morning, and kept Sugawara’s side nice and warm.

Sugawara had been subconsciously keeping an eye out the back window, even if he could not see the driveway from there. If Alli came back, for whatever reason, he’d want a good warning before hand so he could get Hinata upstairs. Even if she was so nice, he couldn't feel any hint of trust for the woman. After the news scare, and Alli appearing just the next day, their home in the middle of the woods was starting to feel a lot less far away from danger.

As if on cue, the sound of the front door opening made him flinch. Hinata shuddered awake at his side, Sugawara put a hand on his head with a quick apology.

Hinata released him anyways, blinking tired eyes just in time to see Daichi come sauntering into the living room doorway with a big grin, Sugawara waved a hand.

“Daichi- your shoes!”

“Oh,” His face dropped a second, guiltily realizing he had forgotten to take off his shoes and tracked snow into the house. Sugawara sighed and Hinata puffed a little laugh. He quickly brought the grin back though, waving a hand. “I think you should come out of the house for a little while, Suga!”

“Huh? Me?”

“No, the other Suga,” Hinata laughed again, Sugawara rolled his eyes with a tsk and a smile. “You’ve been stuck in here long enough! Besides, I still have that surprise.”

“Surprise?” Hinata lit up, the memory came back to Sugawara.

“Oh, you did talk about that before.”

“Come on then, let’s go get dressed and have a bit of fun.”

\-----

“I think I’m good on the...towel?”

“It won’t bite, the cold will.”

“I’ll just use my hood,” Sugawara smiled while he flipped up the hood of his sweater, Daichi shrugged in defeat.

“Well, alright, but it’ll be waiting for you if you want it.”

“Alright, let’s get going then,” Sugawara chuckled and Hinata was hopping at the front door while he came carefully up on his crutch. Hinata was dressed in yesterday's apparel with a few new changes of a scarf made from a pillowcase and his new coat. Sugawara had been just as clueless on what the surprise was as Hinata, so he felt somewhat excited too.

He let Hinata push open the door with a wave of his hand, Sugawara followed him out. Daichi held the door open for him with a hand over his shoulder before he followed out as well, it clamored shut behind them.

Sugawara had to be careful of where he put his crutch as he examined the yard around them. The snow had frozen over some but he still broke through the surface, luckily it helped him keep his grip. It looked as though Daichi had cleared over a big square in the yard’s snow to make flat yard in a part where Sugawara couldn’t see through the window. It still had a thin layer left in the middle with a line through its center, drawn carefully yet still crooked.

In the very middle of the court, a lone volleyball sat, a bit tattered and an off white color from the snow. Sugawara had to stop a minute when he saw it, but Hinata seemed to light up immediately.

“A volleyball?”

“A volleyball!” The redhead went sprinting over, stumbling through the snow. Daichi stopped beside Sugawara, his hands shoved into his pockets.

“I saw it in the window of a second hand shop, I couldn’t just leave it there. I know you miss the team, and this isn’t exactly the best substitute, but it might feel a bit more home-like, even for just a little while.”

Sugawara stood quietly and watched Hinata pluck the ball off the ground in both hands, amazed and excited just from its existence. He tossed it a little and caught it clumsily, his grin plastered on his face somehow grew wider.

“Daichi...that is so thoughtful of you,” Sugawara put a hand up on one cheek, Daichi seemed to glow with pride and relief. Sure he couldn’t play it well with one screwed up foot, but even tossing it around… he was almost as excited as Hinata was, if that was even possible.

He didn’t even think that just a thank you would suffice for this one, but the best he could offer was leaning in to the boy and stealing another quick peck to the soft skin of his cheek. Caught in surprise a moment, Daichi blushed bright red, a smile crept over his features.

“L-Let’s go play for a while then, you can do some tosses for me and Hinata.”

“Yes! Let’s go do that!” Sugawara grinned while he started his way over, hopping through the snow. Daichi laughed and helped him along the best he could.

They organised themselves in the little court, Hinata was bouncing and prepared already like he knew what to do; Sugawara found this pretty hopeful and uplifting. Daichi managed to get Hinata to pass him the ball so he could throw it over to Sugawara who caught it awkwardly. He was leaning on his crutch under one arm so he could have his arms free, it was a bit uncomfortable but it worked out well enough.

He threw the first ball to Daichi, who was quick to step under it and send it back into the air. Hinata watched in amazement. It came Sugawara’s way so he sent it back, nearly losing his balance but he luckily caught himself as Daichi sent the ball up high again.

Hinata watched this game with big, round eyes, his head turned back and forth to watch the ball go. His arms swayed a little, he looked unsure.

“Hinata, you want me to throw you one?” Sugawara caught the ball over his head, the boy perked. He nodded quickly, copying the motion with his arms that Daichi had been doing sloppily. Sugawara sent the ball his way anyways, creating a gentle throw to be easy on him.

Hinata side stepped a few times before the ball bounced off his arms, making it a few feet in front of him before bouncing to the ground. Daichi strolled off to get it while Hinata hopped on his heels with an even more excited look.

“Nice receive!”

“Thank you! Thank you!” Hinata grinned to Sugawara’s call, the two laughed and Daichi came back with the ball under arm. He threw it over to Sugawara again who caught it a bit better this time.

“Oh! Daichi, how about we try some spiking?” Sugawara offered, rolling the ball in his fingers. Daichi seemed to get the idea as well, nodding firmly along.

“Alright, I’ll give it my best shot.”

“Try not to lose the ball on us, though, aim for the ground or something,” Sugawara instructed as he positioned himself a bit better, watching his breath solidify and fade in the cold while Daichi got ready. Hinata was watching pretty intensely now, studying Sugawara’s posture quietly. He hadn’t seen Hinata go from loud to focused like that since their last game, this was good.

Sugawara launched the ball upwards and Daichi came running. With a grunt he hopped up in the air just in time to catch the ball with his palm, sending it down into the snow. The snow stalled its roll enough for it to only push down the yard a few meters, Daichi quickly went to fetch it once he landed clumsily while Sugawara waved a hand.

“Nice!”

“Nice! Nice!” Hinata cheered and clapped his hands above his head, Sugawara laughed as Daichi returned with the ball. He dusted off the snow and handed it to Sugawara before trotting back off to where he was.

“Here! Throw it for me again!” Hinata bounced rapidly, Sugawara was afraid he might slip from his excitement.

“Alright, come get it then,” Sugawara grinned, stretching out one arm with the ball. He gave it a good gentle toss and sent it in a big ark- it would give Hinata plenty of time to run over on those stubby legs of his. Just as Sugawara was looking down from tossing the ball, however, an orange blur passed by him in near a split second. Before he knew it there was a loud slap of skin against ball, Daichi looked awestruck.

That is, until another thump seconds later and then a harder skin against ball thud answered it.

Sugawara whipped around and near took himself off his feet, just in time to catch a glimpse of the ball soaring into the sky again and Hinata landing on his back like a bag of flour. With the wind knocked out of him he coughed and squirmed, the ball bounced to the ground and buried itself in a small pit.

“Hinata!” Sugawara gasped and quickly tried to make his way over, he heard Daichi coming up from behind as well. Trampling through the snow, Daichi made it over to Hinata’s side first, he bent over him worriedly.

“Jeez kid, you alright?”

“Hhh...oww…” Hinata whined, face contorted. He looked more annoyed and pained than hurt, he seemed okay. Then, Daichi’s face broke into a grin, he tried to suppress laughter.

Sugawara’s head whipped around to glare at him crossly, “Daichi!”

“You didn’t see it-” He snorted, motioning with a hand. “-The ball bounced right of the back of the car and nailed him in the face!”

“If this was regular Hinata this would be hilarious, but he’s tiny! What if he broke something?” Just as Sugawara bent next to Hinata, his glare pinned on Daichi’s face, the other teens face dropped. Something pulled up in front of Sugawara, he shuddered so hard he fell back into a sit, his crutch abandoned and falling into the snow next to him.

There hadn’t been a puff of smoke, any cliche fairy magic or curtain pull, but there he was. It felt like a dream, or maybe a stab in the chest from the confusion and sudden fear. He was left staring in disbelief and even dug his fingernails into his palm just a moment, trying to make sure. Hinata sat stiff in front of him, fifteen years old again.

He was in his gym uniform, seated on top of the clothes that they had given his child self. He looked nearly as startled as Sugawara was, maybe even more, he looked around himself while Daichi stood like a statue.

“What- what the hell? Where am I? Suga? Daichi?” Hinata questioned while looking between the two, Sugawara could hardly find a word to answer. He simply stared, his mind pulled a blank. Then, for some reason, he felt the strong, strong urge to cry.

“H-Hinata!”

“I...I really, really, don’t know what’s going on here, where’s the school?... Is that a house?” Hinata looked over Sugawara’s head towards the building, he shifted but looked under himself skeptically at the clothes. “Wh...what the hell is going on? Ooh- it’s cold!”

“H-Hinata…” Sugawara tried his best to hold back once the fog in his mind dispersed, but he sniffled and already felt the tears coming. He was so happy, he had no idea how it happened, but he was back, but he felt like someone had punched him in the head, too. They had tried so hard for this, their whole trip was leading up to this, something that Sugawara had doubted would even happen. He should be happy right? Yet he’d grown just a tiny bit attached to Hinata’s younger self, now it was gone.

Hinata looked on in alarm while Daichi looked just as awestruck as Sugawara had been, Hinata looked between them with furrowed brows. Then, without warning, anger flickered into his features, the boy stiffened and clenched a fist.

“Where the hell is Kageyama?!”


	15. don't neglect your kids, guys

Sugawara felt like an embarrassment while he sat on the high kitchen stool, his feet wouldn’t touch the ground and his elbows on the table. He was still a sniffling mess trying to get a hold of himself with Hinata sitting across from him, Daichi set the full kettle on the stove. Hinata had tried to run off right into the house when they told him Kageyama was inside, but they managed to coerce him into sitting down for now so he could understand what was going on. This wasn’t going too well, so far, since Sugawara was stuck mourning the loss of the smaller Hinata.

Hinata was observing the room around him, finger tapping impatiently on the table; it was obvious something was keeping him quite pissed off, his brows furrowed while he looked about the old cottage. Daichi came ambling back over once he had finished setting up three mugs and the teapot, then dragging out a stool to sit closer to Sugawara.

Hinata watched them expectantly as Daichi rubbed Sugawara’s arm, doing his best to comfort him with a sympathetic smile.

“So...um...I guess I’ll ask questions first?”

“Sure, go ahead,” Daichi welcomed, Sugawara wiped his face in his sleeve.

“Am I asleep?”

“Uh...no? I don’t think so?” Daichi furrowed his brows questioningly, Sugawara wanted to ask himself the same thing. Hinata pulled a hand up from under the table, giving it a hard pinch with his other and scrunching his nose. Silly, but not unlike him.

In a stressed hiss, he continued, “Okay, okay. Where are we?”

“We’re down at my old cottage, just a few hours outside of town.”

“Why?”

“It...uh, that’s kind of a big answer, but it was sort of the safest spot…?”

“What does that mean?” Hinata tilted his head, Sugawara sniffed while he looked back up to him.

“You don’t remember? Any of this? None of anything that happened?”

“Uh… No, not anything that would make sense for me to be here?” He scratched his head, before his nose wrinkled again, “Well except for what that bastard did!”

“Shh! Keep your voice down, please,” Sugawara quickly motioned, Hinata looked on in surprise through his frustrations. He crossed his arms childishly, pushing a pout. Kageyama was still sleeping upstairs, he didn’t want to wake him up just yet. Well, if he wasn’t already awake from the yelling, he would really have to check on him soon.

“He’s a complete idiot though!” Hinata burst, a bit quieter now, “We were outside the school just a little bit ago- out in the woods- and he totally just bashes me head first into a tree! Hard, too! And then I wake up here in the middle of nowhere?”

“K...Kageyama did this?” Sugawara questioned, brows knit together while Daichi looked on in just as much confusion. No, that didn’t make any sense; if Kageyama had somehow managed to magically turn Hinata into a small child, he wouldn’t have done it to himself… Sugawara chewed on his lip, but Hinata nodded confidently.

“He’s an ass.”

“Wait now, but is that all you remember?” Daichi pushed, leaning over the table. “Did you see anything else? Maybe anyone lurking around?”

“Um...I don’t think so…?” Hinata looked down to his hands like the answer was there, perplexed by his question, “Why though? Did something happen?”

“That...that probably happened around five or six days ago,” Sugawara explained, Hinata blinked in disbelief.

“What? Uh, I’m pretty sure it happened like...maybe an hour or less ago? That’s what it feels like,” Hinata shrugged, Sugawara felt like he wanted to tear at his own hair; he really didn’t remember a single thing about being a child, that part of him was totally gone. He clenched a fist, feeling Daichi scoot in more to comfort him.

“Dammit! And we didn’t even take a single picture!”

“Neither of us had a camera to do it with, I guess we’ll just have memories,” Daichi sighed, his arm came around Sugawara to give him a squeeze.

“Memories of what?! You two are freaking me out!” Hinata spat, hands holding the edge of the table. Sugawara glanced Daichi’s way, letting a sigh out of his nose.

“I don’t think explaining will really do anything, should we…?”

“Are you sure? He’s sick, you don’t want to scare Hinata or him.”

“We can’t hide it from him, though.”

“Stop being vague, I swear guys,” Hinata whined, his shoulders drooping while he bit his lip. Sugawara simply took a hold of his crutch again, Daichi released him as he boosted himself back up on to his feet.

\---------

Sugawara was the first one to go to Kageyama’s door, pushing it open slowly. Daichi and Hinata stood a few feet behind him, watching with curious eyes as he peeked in. The smell had been slight in the hallway but was much more apparent in the room; the air was sickly and dense, a warm sour sent just at the edge of his senses. It wasn’t like it wasn’t there the first time he came in, but after leaving the house, it had become more apparent.

Slowly letting the door slide its way open, Sugawara made his way in with careful steps, immediately spotting Kageyama laying in his bed. The child was on top of his blankets, sprawled out on his back. His clothing jumbled and his skin pale, the only thing that marked that he wasn’t a dead corps was the rise and fall of his small chest. Through the silence of the room Sugawara could hear the wheezing each breath made, guilt and worry stabbed through his back.

He had checked up on him this morning, but Kageyama hadn’t wanted to get up so he didn’t push him. It hadn't looked this bad that morning, or maybe he wasn’t paying enough attention. Cursing himself soundlessly, he made his way over to Kageyama’s bedside with the rhythmic tapping of his crutch, easing himself to a sit on the edge.

“Kageyama, you awake buddy?”

It took a few seconds, but Kageyama soon shifted, his arm twitched before he began to shift. He’d gotten thinner, too, from only eating about once a day and vomiting twice. His eyes squinted open and he tried to push himself up to a sit, Sugawara helped him with a gentle hand on his back; he was extremely warm, Sugawara almost flinched once he touched him.

“S...Suga?”

“Hey champ, how’s it going?”

“...” Kageyama stared into his lap with sleep crusted eyes, weak coughs wracked his small frame; Sugawara ground his teeth while his heart dropped to his stomach. He put a hand on the boy’s back again, looking back to the doorway when he spotted movement.

Hinata was looking in with wide, unblinking eyes, Sugawara could already hear the millions of questions zipping through the teen’s brain. Daichi was just a few feet off, the concern visible in the dim light.

“Is...Is that…”

“You were just the same, not even half an hour ago,” Sugawara spoke quietly, rubbing his hand up and down Kageyama’s spine. The brunette was looking up to Hinata now, too tired to even muster up a look to reflect whatever he could be feeling then. “Y-you weren't sick though, we thankfully kept you from getting whatever he’s caught.”

“But...But… no, that can’t be him, there’s no way!”

“Sugawara, we can’t leave him like this any longer,” Daichi pushed his way through into the bedroom, Sugawara looked back to the child, he could feel the bones in his back through the baggy shirt he wore.

“I know. I’ll take him up to the clinic-”

“No you won’t.”

”Daichi.”

“You’ve taken enough blame in this mess, like hell I’d let you go and get arrested again.”

“But they don’t know you’re even definitely involved yet!” Sugawara pushed back, looking up to Daichi with pleading eyes. “You could have just run off for all they know- you can still be safe! I’ll go, then bring the car back, and you can drive back home with Hinata-”

“No, like hell I’d ever even think about doing that in this lifetime,” Daichi’s voice ticked with malice, Sugawara chewed his cheek and looked away. Kageyama was falling asleep sitting up, his head lolled forwards weakly. He felt horrible with this pitiful arguing and prolonging Kageyama’s suffering, but it was too unlikely that either of them would give in easily.

Hinata had slowly progressed into the room more, standing at the foot of the bed and watching the small boy with a face of disbelief Sugawara couldn’t bear to look at. Kageyama leaned into him so Sugawara let his arm wrap around the boy, hugging him into his side.

“That’s...that’s Kageyama?”

Sugawara nodded the tiniest bit, a hand coming up through Kageyama’s hair.

“I...this is extremely hard to believe.”

“It was for us, too, but we’ve been living with this for a week now,” Daichi explained, Sugawara could feel his eyes still trained on him. Hinata shifted from foot to foot, taking in a slow breath.

“Why hasn’t anyone taken him to the hospital?” Hinata’s voice was barely above a whisper, Sugawara held Kageyama closer to himself.

“The second they recognize Kageyama, the police will be on our heels again,” Daichi explained softly, “We can’t go home, or at least Sugawara can’t, because the police are after us.”

“Why? What did you guys do?” Hinata persisted, distress seeped into his tone while realization flickered into Sugawara’s eyes; no, Daichi couldn’t go home either, his parents already knew something was up. The damage was permanent now, there was no going back for either of them.

“We rescued the both of you, they were going to take you away,” Daichi explained carefully, Kageyama lifted his arm to cough into his elbow again, Sugawara winced. “The police already caught Sugawara once, he escaped, and I don’t think they’ll be happy with what answer we have for them after all of this.”

“...This is crazy,” Hinata’s hands kneaded his shorts, distress making his face wrinkle. “You have to be joking, this has to be some huge elaborate, stupid ass joke!”

Neither of them said anything; what was there to say? Sugawara couldn’t help the mutinous look clinging to him while Hinata paced the small space of the room, grabbing at his hair.

“S-shit, this is bad,” He bit his lip, turning back to them. He made his way closer, fists clenched, “Let me take him then, they won’t know who I am!”

“Can we do that?” Sugawara looked back up to Daichi who scratched his chin, “We still haven’t taken into account that they’re looking for the kids too…”

“I know they probably don’t have Hinata’s picture, what about Kageyama?”

“They had him in the police station, but I’m not sure,” Sugawara muttered, giving a swift shake of his head, “It doesn’t matter, this is the only choice we have now. We’ll just have to deal with whatever comes of it the best we can. If we can minimize the risk we will… but we can’t take the chance to wait that much longer.”


	16. he's just got a week of sadness stuck in his eyes he's alright

They ended up carefully moving Kageyama downstairs on to the couch in the living room. Hinata stayed with him while Daichi cleaned out his bedroom, opening the windows for a while to let new air circulate through. Sugawara ended up doing his best in the kitchen to pull some kind of food together, using some more of the veggies Daichi had brought home to try and put together some sort of soup he’d read in the old cooking magazine.

They had decided that they would go first thing tomorrow; it was too late in the day and none of them knew if the clinic was actually open so late, nor what time it was. It was obvious as well that Kageyama didn’t look like he would be surviving much outside the house. He was tired and barely made it down the stairs, Sugawara couldn’t imagine trying to drag him to the car and off into town. He wasn’t even sure if tomorrow would be any better, but he could only hold on to the last bit of fleeting hope he had.

There was always option two, however.

Sugawara had been thinking about it the entire time, since they got Hinata into the house and were confronted with Kageyama’s issue; if they could make him normal again, would that rid him of his illness? Or maybe just give him a body better suited to fight it? Sugawara wasn’t entirely sure, but he wasn’t quite ready to nail Kageyama in the face with a volleyball to see.

Putting the metal lid back on his boiling pot, he turned himself around and began to make his way carefully back towards the living room. Kageyama had probably fallen asleep again, he didn’t want to bug him for long with the loud tap of his crutch on the floor. It had started to annoy him long ago, too, which just made the walk even heavier when as he made his way to the living room doorway.

Stopping a few inches short, he peeked inside to find something surprising; Hinata was knelt on the couch in front of Kageyama who stared with half asleep eyes. Hinata was pulling some sort of face at him, fingers pinching his cheeks out and eyes crossing, the tv played softly in the background. Sugawara couldn’t help the warm smile that melted over him, watching Hinata put all his effort into trying to cheer up the child. It was pretty unlikely that Kageyama would offer any kind of smile, even as a child, but the scene was too cute.

Shit, he was going to start crying again.

He patted the side of his face lightly to try and snap himself out of it, only to jump and almost slap himself when hands slid over his shoulders. His head whipped around, but Daichi’s hands pulled back.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, you surprised me, that’s all,” Sugawara mumbled back, the two of them kept their voices down and Hinata didn’t seem to notice them. Daichi settled with putting one hand on Sugawara’s waist, letting himself stand close.

“You look pretty stressed.”

“Reasonably,” Sugawara breathed, Kageyama’s head tilted while Hinata muttered something to him with a big smile.

“Really reasonably,” Daichi rested his head down on Sugawara’s shoulder in a slouch. “Why don’t you go lay down for a little while?”

“I don’t think I can lay around anymore.”

“...Yeah,” Daichi gave him a light squeeze, Sugawara brought a hand up to rest over Daichi’s. If he sat around anymore, he was sure he would vomit from how sick he felt over all of this. If he could have anything right now, he would have Kageyama safe again. He didn’t care if he could go home after this or not, in the very least he wanted it all to be worth something.

“But, uh, on a side note, have you seen my cell phone around anywhere still?”

“Hm?” Sugawara pursed his lips, feeling a tug in his throat, “That thing? It wasn’t in the car?”

“I couldn’t find it there, I was going to use some of my data to look up what could be wrong with him,” Daichi explained with a deflating sigh, “I should have taken more care of it, I must have lost it while I was out shopping.”

Guilt tightened around Sugawara’s throat like a dog’s jaws, the regret was drowning him now. It had snowed, so finding that phone battery would be near impossible by now. At least knowing what was wrong with Kageyama might have helped them fight it, now he felt like he was choking on his own lie.

But how could he tell him now?

“That...that really sucks, but we’re going out tomorrow anyways, so it’s alright,” Sugawara reassured, Daichi grunted into his shoulder. God, he needed to stop this as soon as possible. Once they were in the safe zone, he had too much explaining to do.

“We should talk later on, maybe before bed,” Daichi’s arm strung around him to meet his other hand, “We need to know what we’re going to do once Kageyama’s safe. It’ll be good to have some sort of plan, even if we don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Yeah, we’ll-”

“Uah! How long have you two been standing there?!” Hinata jerked suddenly on the couch, Kageyama stumbled sideways against the back and tried to steady himself with a hand. Sugawara chuckled while Hinata observed them with panicked eyes, confusion seeping into them.

“Uh...why are…”

Daichi was quick to release him, Sugawara perked. Embarrassment flooded over the both of them while Hinata furrowed his brows, Daichi held his big dumb grin, however.

“The food should be done soon, and Daichi’s finished cleaning up Kageyama’s room,” Sugawara gave a quick nod and a shaky smile while Hinata continued to scrutinize them. It only broke off once Kageyama coughed into his arm again, the teen pushed himself back up.

“Well, good, this little guy still looks tired as hell,” Hinata turned to Kageyama, and to Sugawara’s surprise scooped him up under the arms easily. He held him up like a prize, grinning ear to ear while Kageyama simply looked back to him in a dazed state.

“We’re gonna make you feel better tomorrow morning, alright buddy?”

Kageyama stared a second before nodding with a faint sound, Hinata looked even more pleased. It came to no surprise that Hinata was great with children, but Hinata being cheerful and playful with Kageyama, of all people, still felt so odd.

Hinata set Kageyama back down on his feet, keeping out one of his hands to help the sickly boy walk, “I’ll take him back upstairs then, since you two seem to need the alone time,” Hinata giggled as he lead Kageyama past them. Daichi caught his head to ruffle his hair teasingly as he passed, Hinata shrugged away and stuck out his tongue. He seemed to be adjusting quickly, and really was back to his normal self. It wasn’t as far off from his younger self than Sugawara had imagined, it made him feel even just a little bit better.

\----------

The dim bedroom lamp cast the same long shadows across the chipped wooden floor, moving with gentle grace. Sugawara sat staring at the window from his edge of the bed, the black night sky only held the slight edges of the heavy, woolly clouds that shrouded the empty black. They whispered threats of snowfall and cold, but Sugawara couldn’t tell if they were lying.

Daichi was pulling a shirt he had washed in the bathtub earlier that day over his head, the fabric was wrinkled and probably still damp. Hinata had insisted and argued until they let him stay in the bedroom with Kageyama, back on the stiff pull-out couch. He said he wanted to keep an eye on him, and since he was older the risk of him falling ill from whatever Kageyama had lessoned, he said it would be fine. Without a better reason for him not to, Daichi and Sugawara gave in and let him do as he pleased, so long as he didn’t keep Kageyama awake.

The bed shook when Daichi sat himself down on his own side, pulling his legs up under the covers. He let out a long yawn, Sugawara pulled his own legs up. A rock sitting in his stomach kept him planted, Daichi leaned back on his hands.

“It’s been quite the long day.”

“Yes, it has.”

“Do you have any ideas for our game plan tomorrow?”

“...” Sugawara looked off the side of the bed, brushing his hair out of his face. “...I’m not one hundred percent sure right now what we’ll do after we get Kageyama somewhere safe.”

“The only thing we really need to do after that is get Hinata and him back home,” Daichi explained, sniffing and rubbing the back of his hand under his nose. “We can try to drive them back, and see where we can go from there.”

“I wonder how long Kageyama will take to get better, hopefully we won’t have to leave him long with the hospital,” Sugawara muttered, scooting himself backwards some ot sit back against the backboard of the bed. It was cold against his spine, briefly trailing goosebumps over his arms. If they needed to keep him overnight or a few days, it would stall them from taking them back home and helping Kageyama get back to normal even further. Sugawara wouldn’t rush it, though. They had endangered Kageyama enough as it was, he was first priority now.

“Maybe we can find some way to hide you,” Daichi continued in a smaller voice, Sugawara glanced his way. “Maybe get a haircut and some dye, one of those masks or something. We can hide out until you’re name is cleared from the media, I’m sure the team would help,”

“Daichi, neither of us can go back.”

Daichi quieted, Sugawara couldn’t bear to look at him anymore.

“What do you mean…? I thought you said the police only saw you.”

“...Your parent’s know, too,” a cold wave washed over him as he felt Daichi tense beside him, he felt his eyes burning into him. “They know all about this, it’s too dangerous for us to try and hide where we used to live anymore.”

“H-how do you know? Sugawara, we can make it work-”

“I saw your phone,” Sugawara finally breathed, brows knit together. He forced himself to look at Daichi again, the fear and confusion in his features took Sugawara aback. He shook it off; he couldn’t handle the lies between them anymore.

“Your family knows, and they’re angry. My family knows, too. If they catch us anywhere near home again, it’ll be the last of us.”

“...is that why I can’t find my phone anymore?”

“I threw the battery across the lawn,” Sugawara sighed, “It was dumb, I know. But I didn’t want you to see any of the cruel things they were saying. Daichi, why didn’t you tell me you’re parents were so mean to you?”

“Well, it doesn’t exactly come up in normal conversation that my parents hate my guts and that this is probably a blessing for them,” Sugawara was left disoriented while Daichi looked back to his lap with a sour grin, astonished at the words coming from the teen’s mouth. He knew Daichi had issues between him and his parents from the start of their journey, but had never heard such bitterness bleed into his voice.

Daichi ran quick fingers through his hair, his face flickered a nervous smile, “But whatever, right? I guess I don’t have anything left to hold on to back there, if my parent’s finally admitted it, I’m free to go wherever I want,” he laughed dryly with an exaggerated shrug, his creased face hurt just to look at.

“Daichi…”

“Hey, I know, I’m really sorry that we’ll probably never get to see the guys again,” his breath hitched, “B-but I hope that my company will be enough until...until we…”

Sugawara pushed himself closer, Daichi’s hands rubbed at his face while his shoulders quivered. He took Daichi into his arms, the boy immediately hugged him back and buried his face into his shoulder. He sobbed and hiccupped, muffled by the fabric of his shirt and a death grip that nearly took the breath right out of Sugawara.

“I-I’m so damn sorry.”

The room suddenly felt uncomfortably big for just the two of them, too much empty space for two teenagers to try and fill with anything other than silence. Sugawara rubbed Daichi’s back, resting his chin up on Daichi’s head.

“You’re more than enough, Daichi, I couldn’t ask for anyone better,” He hummed, trying his hardest to not let his tone waver while Daichi clung to him like a lifeline. He kept muttering apologies, even through Sugawara’s attempts at comfort and reassurance, the strange damp smell of the house was stuck to him. It made him feel even worse, seeing Daichi like this, but a weight was lifted. If there was any chance that he might lose Daichi tomorrow, he didn’t want anything left between them.

The picture of the razor blades he’d seen in the bathroom flashed in front of his eyes, resurfacing from being branded into his thoughts. He tightened his grips and tried to keep calm, things were starting to connect now.

Letting his thoughts wander as he leaned into Daichi’s touch, his eyes shut. He hadn’t seen Daichi on the verge of tears or crying so often ever before. He had all the reason to be, after they had thrown their lives away like this and had their little wake up call earlier, but Sugawara couldn’t quite cry for himself just yet. If he was going to be upset over anything, he’d save it for the day that he truly lost one of the people he loved. There was no way he would be letting that happen. Daichi had all the reason in the world to cry, Sugawara couldn’t blame him.

Sniffling, Daichi’s head finally pulled up again, his face was red and puffy. Sugawara smiled to him in the best comforting way he could, Daichi released his grip to be softer.

“I-It’s my turn too,” Daichi murmured, sitting himself up a bit better but staying put in Sugawara’s arms. “I...I was going to leave on my own the day we found out about Kageyama and Hinata’s disappearance,” he admitted solemnly, Sugawara brought a hand up to gently rub his cheek, “B-but I couldn’t leave right when you lost two of our teammates already! How could I have left you to bear that on your own…?”

“You would have broken my heart,” Sugawara cupped the teens cheek, watching the pained expression flicker over his face. He knew that hugging it out with him wouldn’t change any of the damage done, but it was the least he could do for now.

“I would have forgiven you, though, even if you didn’t come back,” He brushed back Daichi’s hair with his other hand, “You always have a good reason for doing what you do, it’s obvious you wouldn’t run away without one.”

“M...Mm,” Daichi nodded, he swallowed hard. Sugawara leaned in and gave him a kiss on the forehead, smiling again.

“Why don’t we get some rest now? We’ve got a busy day tomorrow, you’re going to have to keep being strong for all of us a little while longer.”


	17. did u really think this would work though

That night, Sugawara had a dream he couldn’t quite remember. A sweet, milky smell drowned his senses and he was warm. The only thing he could recall was it being very vivid, and the whole team was there, even some old members, and his parents. He knew it was a dream, however, since his crutch had been missing and they were back home again.

Nobody said anything memorable, and his body ached. Noya, Tanaka, and Hinata horsed around while Asahi cowered and Kageyama scolded the redhead. They fought and Tsukishima made rude remarks to the both of them, Yamaguchi laughed and they jumped to their defense. His parents only stood by, watching idly where Sugawara couldn’t see their faces.

It never came to mind during his sleep, but he would have loved to ask them if they would forgive him. If he could come home again. If he could have Daichi over and order in a small pizza, just for the two of them and watch some movie that Daichi loved and Sugawara could never quite understand why. Maybe convince him to watch a comedy that he never laughed as hard to as Sugawara did. They’d be squished in his single bed, back’s stiff from sitting against the wall, warm under the blanket he slept with every night.

He could smell the deodorant now that Daichi used and he never really liked, but never had the heart to tell him. Hear him laugh, hear his teammates laugh, scream at each other, hit each other, and laugh some more.

“Daichi!”

He shuddered awake, his breath caught in his throat as the bed bounced. Trying to get his bearings, Hinata’s urgent cries assaulted his ears like gun shots.

“Daichi get up dammit! He can’t breath!”

Sugawara scrambled up to a sit, Daichi shot up straight with Hinata bent over his legs and holding fist fulls of his shirt. He looked groggy, but Sugawara couldn’t tell what was going on yet.

Hinata rolled off of Daichi who stumbled out of the bed before the two went running out, the words sunk in and hit him like a car.

He can’t breath.

He fought the blankets off of himself before making a mad grab for his crutch. Hinata’s panicked blabbering floated in from the hall while Sugawara roughly got to his feet and started off to the door. Cold terror covered his body with pins and needles like a net, he came into the hall where he could see Hinata looking in from the doorway to his and Kageyama’s room. He approached, Hinata’s face was panic stricken and contorted in a look of pain.

Sugawara could see over his shoulder to Daichi inside, standing over Kageyama at his bedside who writhed weakly with hands twisting the bed sheets. Only then could he hear the ugly noises escaping through the child’s throat, like muffled choking and uneven gasping that went nowhere. The blood on his little hands stained the bed sheets a bright red and dark maroon, Daichi was trying desperately to get him breathing again, though Sugawara couldn’t see what he was doing through his thick shoulders.

“Kageyama! No! Shit!” Sugawara hadn’t even realized he’d begun to yell as he tried to push past Hinata, but the redhead grabbed and held him back. He could barely notice Hinata trying to quell his cries of agony, gasping out whatever the terror in his brain pushed through. Somehow, he knew this would happen. He knew that the pills weren’t working, Kageyama hadn't been getting better, they should have taken him to a clinic long ago. The world felt far away, his head light.

Hinata wrestled him out the door with shocking strength, his crutch left to clamor against the floor. He held him in a bear hug, successfully keeping him away from the doorway so he could no longer see inside. Sugawara struggled against him but Hinata stood strong, the choking, coughing, and Daichi’s gentle coaxing was too loud to try and ignore.

This felt like it went on forever. Sugawara had soon since given up on trying to fight against Hinata and went on to hugging him back, holding on to his teammate hopelessly and biting his lip. They were hardly out of high school, how stupid were they to have thought they could take care of two children all on their own. Kageyama could have been off living with some responsible parents, far away from here in a warm house with proper clothes and care. Everything went wrong, everything went so terribly wrong.

They were abruptly surrounded by an eerie quiet, flooding their home with the whistling of the wind and creaking of floorboards taking its spot. Hinata held him a few moments more, the pain in his ankle a dull afterthought to his heart on the floor.

Hinata let him go and Sugawara balanced himself on one foot with one hand against the wall. The redhead crept away back to the doorway, peering back inside. After taking a moment to realize where he was, Sugawara limped forward as well, looking over Hinata’s head and into the room after bracing himself the best he could.

Blood dripped from his mouth and down his chin, mixed with tears dripping off his cheeks, his small shoulders heaved. Kageyama was sitting up with the help of one of Daichi’s hands on his chest, taking in slow, ragged breaths. He was as pale as the walls and shook sickly, but he was breathing.

Daichi crouched next to the bed, his other hand gently rubbed Kageyama’s back. Snow clung to the window at the head of the bed, blowing and whistling on the windowpane. Sugawara finally let out a shaky breath he had been holding in, feeling his spirits crumple.

“We’re going, now,” Daichi was already getting up to his feet, putting one arm behind Kageyama’s back and the other under his legs.The boy let himself be lifted like a rag doll while Hinata ambled forward.

“W-wait, Daichi-”

“This has gotten too serious, get something warm on,” He spoke gruffly as he pushed through Hinata and into the hallway, breezing past Sugawara. Hinata went stuttering after him, trying to get his attention while Sugawara bent and fumbled to get his crutch again.

“Wait- it snowed over night! There’s at least two feet of it out there-”

“Get the sheet from off the couch,” The two started down the stairs and Sugawara followed the best he could and collected his crutch, a numb spacey feeling in his brain. He was bound to wake up any time now, right? He had too many nightmares in this house, it couldn’t last this long.

He made it to the bottom of the stairs, Hinata whisked past him from the living room and off into the kitchen with the thin blanket they had been keeping on the couch. Daichi had sat Kageyama on one of the stools at the table while he got Hinata’s coat on him, carefully helping his arms through.

“It’s still snowing too, god, how long is the walk?”

“We’re driving.”

“You can drive?!” Hinata questioned and Daichi pulled up the zipper of the child’s coat before taking the blanket and wrapping him up in it, picking Kageyama back up once he was bundled up the blanket. The child looked tired and out of it, his head rested on Daichi’s collar bone. Hinata shook his head.

“This is too dangerous-”

“It was dangerous from the start, and now this is the end,” Sugawara approached Hinata and stopped at his side, he watched Daichi go for the car keys sitting on the shelf near the door. “We’ll go in with him too, you’ll come with us?”

“What…? Of course I’m coming!”

“Even with how dangerous this is?”

“Y...Yes, this is Kageyama we’re talking about, I can’t leave him.”

“I can’t either. Let’s go then, Hinata, you’ll be in the back seat with him,” Daichi slipped on his shoes, and Hinata jumped to follow.

“Right.”

\--------

Sitting in the passenger seat with his crutch balanced between his legs, Sugawara watched Daichi clear snow off the windshield. He had nothing to use other than the shovel and his arm, only in his sweater from their quick leave. Hinata held Kageyama in the back seat, the boy buckled in just at his side, with Hinata’s arm over his shoulders and the other crossed over his front. The inside of the car was freezing, but Daichi had turned on the heat, so it was slowly warming up.

Hinata looked exhausted, but his forehead was still creased in worry. Kageyama was staring at the car’s floor with a tired look, every time he would start to doze off Hinata would poke and rustle him.

“...I stayed up all night watching him, because I was so scared, and I almost fell asleep this morning but I heard him making those terrible...sounds,” Hinata explained in a quiet voice. He took the bottom of his shirt and used it to wipe some flecks the dried blood from Kageyama’s cheek. His hand was shaking, Sugawara watched him from the rear view mirror.

“It was good that you did. Don’t worry too much about Daichi’s driving, he knows what he’s doing and wouldn’t put us in danger if he could help it.”

“Where did you even get a car…?”

“Daichi drove us over here in it, it belongs to his parents.”

“You stole a car from them?”

“We also stole you and Kageyama,” Sugawara picked at his shorts, “That’s why if anyone calls the police while we’re there, we’re going to have to disappear.”

“...”

“If you get left behind with Kageyama, tell them we were keeping you hostage or something, okay? Don’t get yourself involved badly, they still think you’re missing back home.”

“But, but what about you two? You’re going to leave?”

“We don’t really have any other choice, Hinata,” Sugawara laughed bitterly, pushing hair out of his face. “We’ll make sure you can get home somehow, but it’s out of the question for us, now.”

“We can try to explain it to them, though! I’m sure with enough proof they’ll understand-”

“Understand what? We don’t even understand what happened.”

Hinata looked away with a sour look on his face.

“S-Suga...” Kageyama lifted his head a little to look at him, wheezing out a breath. Sugawara mustered up the best smile he could and turned back to look at him.

“Everything will be fine, alright? Try not to worry about it.”

The drivers side door opened and Daichi pushed himself in, tapping off the bottoms of his sneakers before he shut the door. His cheeks were red from the cold, snow flakes stuck to his shoulders and hair.

“Ready to go now?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be.”

“Good,” Sugawara leaned in, giving Daichi’s cheek a quick peck. “Please don’t kill us.”

The car didn’t start to move too easily at first. The tires spun in the snow for a few chance moments, leaving a cold pit of worry in Sugawara’s stomach. However, the snow hadn’t been very thick, only light flurries, so after some persuasion, the vehicle started to climb on top of the frozen layers. Sugawara kept an eye on the two in the back seat while Daichi carefully maneuvered them down the driveway- or at least where he presumed it was.

A few times when they started down the hill, the car would slide, and Sugawara could see Hinata grasp Kageyama tighter who was completely oblivious to whatever was going on. The two jostled with every bump the car took, Sugawara held on tight to the door.

“Shit, shit,”

“Who’s that?”

Sugawara looked back over the dash, feeling the fear run up his spine at who he saw. Alli was trekking up the driveway through the knee deep snow, just off to the side from the way they were driving. Not so far behind her stood someone taller in an almost cartoon like yet unmistakable hat. The officer put an arm out to try and flag them down, but Sugawara quickly patted at Daichi’s arm.

“Drive, drive!”

“I’m going as fast as I can right now-”

“Go faster anyways! They’ll catch us!” Sugawara barked as Alli and the sheriff picked up the pace towards them, Daichi held on to the wheel with white knuckles as he pushed on the gas. The car slid and jerked over the snow, Sugawara grabbed hold of the car door and his seat while Hinata held Kageyama in a bear hug. The two outside stumbled away from the car as it slid out of control, making way down the hill and pushing tracks through the snow.

Daichi managed to keep them from crashing into trees, but the terror was evident on his face as they came towards the road where the police car was parked across the driveway. Without anywhere to go, he slammed on the breaks. This hardly made a difference as the car slid head on into the other, pushing it out into the street with a loud metallic bang.

There were several shrieks of surprise and terror, Sugawara sat with his eyes shut tight. He peeked them open again, checking quickly to the back seat. Hinata and Kageyama looked petrified but unscathed, he looked back to Daichi. The teen was holding the steering wheel like his hands were stuck to it, fingers shaking, eyes wide and face gone pale. It had only been a bump, but it could have ended their journey right then and there.

“Daichi, keep going!” He nudged the boy again while looking out the back window, spotting the sheriff and Alli chasing down the hill and tumbling through the snow after them.

“Daichi, hurry, hurry they’re coming!” Hinata looked back as well and began to call, Daichi kicked back into action and hit the gas. They pulled out on to the street, the metal screech of their front bumper skidding over the concrete made Sugawara shuddered.

Off of the snow, the car had better traction and picked up speed fast. They followed the road, the whole car sat on edge while the front bumper tore off and was lost to the street.

“Jesus, Jesus,” Daichi breathed heavily while hunched over the steering wheel, eyes trained on the road ahead of them, Sugawara put a hand on his shoulder, trying his best to calm him down while feeling the anger bubble in his chest.

“Dammit! I knew we couldn’t trust her, dammit…” Sugawara cursed under his breath, Daichi swallowed hard and Hinata looked about in concern.

“Who was that…?”

“Doesn’t matter, we just have to keep going. But, uh, Daichi, you can slow down a little bit, we’re away from them now,” Sugawara tugged on the teens sleeve who blinked before nodding curtly. He eased up on the gas and they slowed a little from going just a bit too fast for his comfort. He kept an eye on the rear view mirror anyways, hoping that their little crash into the side of the police cruiser would stall their chase at least a short time longer.

“They’re going to find us at the hospital.”

“We’ll deal with that when it comes to it, we just need to worry about getting there first.”

“Kageyama, come on buddy,” Hinata urged with worry still plastered on his face, nudging the boy who had begun to fall asleep again. Sugawara hadn’t heard him coughing a whole lot since they got in the car and started driving, which he wasn’t sure if he should have been happy or even more concerned about.

They pulled around another corner, hugging the side of the road; Sugawara kept a sharp eye on the mirrors.

“Daichi, how long until we get there?”

“Not long now,” He muttered, chewing his cheek. His brows were furrowed and the fear from before had ebbed away from his features, he must have been thinking hard about something. Sugawara took another quick glance at the rear view mirror, paranoia made his throat tight. Daichi took a peek up at the mirror at the front and the car sped up.

“Kageyama, stay up,” Hinata urged the young boy again, Kageyama was wheezing. Taking another firm grip to the handle on the door, he watched the trees fly past while biting his lower lip.


	18. dang youngins and their crazy cars

They came skidding into the hospital parking lot, only a few other cars littered about in the snow. The building was in no way impressive, without the huge painted sign on the front of it, the building would have blended in with the rest.

Their car bumped the curb covered in snow in front of them when they pulled into a parking space, Sugawara only took a moment to mutter a curse while feeling his heart beating a mile a minute before he pushed open his car door.

Hinata and Daichi came out of their own doors, Hinata lifted Kageyama under the arms again. The boy looked half asleep, and was still wheezing out his shallow breaths. Hinata looked between the two while Daichi came around the car and Sugawara steadied himself on his crutch.

“Wait, I thought I was just going to go in alone?”

“Too late for that now,” Daichi grunted, coming up and stealing Kageyama away easily from his grasp. He hoisted him up on to his hip, Kageyama rested his head on his shoulder. “There’s no use for us to stay behind now, the police are probably almost here.”

“Come on then, fast,” Sugawara motioned with a hand, starting off towards the hospital with Daichi who ran up to his side. Hinata took a second before he came running up as well, face taut with worry.

Hinata hurried ahead of them to push open the door, he held it open while Daichi stepped in first and Sugawara followed. Immediately the woman at the front desk looked up from a small stack of papers she was sifting through, the bored look on her face instantly shifted to surprise. She wore her hair in a low pony tail, long and brown and a pair of dark green rimmed glasses on her nose. Behind her, the wall was stacked with prescriptions and a few photos of different doctors, the waiting room like area was warm and muffled sound.

The blood that both Daichi and Kageyama sported probably set her off at first, but her face quickly twisted to something meaner.

“Dammit! It’s you again!”

“Yeah, I know-”

“You should have come sooner!” She hissed and marched around the desk, Sugawara kept one eye on the door and the other on the woman. She must have been the woman Daichi had first visited that while back, it was pretty understandable that she would be so upset.

“Come on, come this way. Amy! Open up the first room!”

“Huh?”

“Hurry up!” She hissed to the voice from the back hall while she dragged Daichi off by his sleeve, the boy was forced to follow with tripping steps. Sugawara made sure to stick right behind him, but stopped a moment to look Hinata’s way.

“Hinata, stay here and watch out the window.”

“What? Hey but-”

“If the police show up, you come down here screaming, okay? We need this, okay? We’ll make sure Kageyama will be fine.”

“....Fine, hurry up then!” Hinata turned on a dime and went dashing back to the waiting room, Sugawara hurried in the direction Daichi and the woman left to as fast as he could.

“Jesus Christ, Jesus.”

“Tori don’t freak them out-”

“If you guys were my kids, I’d kill you,” Sugawara walked into the only open room to see Kageyama sat up on a medical bench, the woman from before and a new nurse hovered over him. Daichi stood just a few feet off, his head flicking to Sugawara when he came in before looking back nervously.

“Pneumonia, very, very bad after being left for so long,” Tori muttered while taking down the stethoscope from her ears. Kageyama looked to be trying his best to keep his head up, which was not a lot. Daichi dared to come forward again, speaking up in a wavering voice.

“Is he going to be okay…?”

“Like hell I’d let him be anything else but, but I need the surgeons.”

“Doctor Shiono couldn’t come in because of the snow-”

“Well call him in anyways, this can’t wait!”

“Y-yes Tori,”

“Where’s Ryouta?”

“Here, and what’s going on?” Sugawara jumped and quickly stepped out of the way when the voice behind him spoke up, a man only around a foot or so taller than him paced into the room.

“Go keep that kid occupied with his leg, there’s too many bodies in here,” Tori went to a drawer at the other end of the small room, starting to rummage through it while Amy put a hand on Kageyama’s back.

“Wait a minute, I can’t leave him!” Sugawara started, but a grip on his shoulder brought him to a stop. Ryouta started to lead him away, while Sugawara gave Daichi a pleading look.

“It’s for the better, doctors orders,” Ryouta muttered while Daichi swallowed and nodded. Sugawara defeatedly let himself get towed along, waiting until Ryouta had brought them out of the room and shut the door before finally looking away.

\-------

“Do you have your health card on you?”

“No.”

“You’ll be needing an x-ray for this.”

“I don’t have time for that, sorry.”

“Well, I was at least hoping you weren’t an athlete,” The doctor muttered while bending back up from checking out Sugawara’s ankle. Ryouta adjusted his glasses, a clipboard in one arm. Sugawara was still on edge, waiting for Hinata’s call any time now. He didn't know what they would be doing for Kageyama’s sake. From what he had heard, helping him wouldn’t be easy.

He’d only been in there for five minutes, not too long. The doctor was fast with checking him out, but the uncertainty of where he would be running next made him itch and fidget.

“It’s already half healed itself in the cracked position its in, which is bad. Did you walk on it for long?”

“I ran around on it for a whole night,” Sugawara muttered in disdain, pulling up his leg a bit more to examine it, “Look, even though it would be wonderful to save it, I don’t think that’s a choice for us right now. Can you give me anything that will make sure I just don’t die?”

The doctor sighed, pressing a knuckle to the bridge of his nose.

“Tori always getting us mixed up in this crazy business…” he muttered before he turned abruptly and went over to the small cabinet not too far in the tiny room. He fished through the draw for a notepad before he scribbled something down on it, then came back over to Sugawara.

“Here, give this prescription to a drug store. Take them daily, it’ll stop infection,” He shoved the paper into Sugawara’s hand, who nodded quickly after a moment. “Get to another doctor as soon as you can if you won’t stay now, and make sure to tell him you’ve been taking this. Invest in a cane, too, since you won’t want to be on that crutch forever.”

“A cane...?”

“I know it’s not cool for kids your age, but you’re the one who’s making the choices here,” Ryouta sighed, his voice edged with annoyance while Sugawara looked over the note.

“Alright, fine, I can deal with it,” Sugawara agreed, stuffing the note into his jeans pocket. Just as he was about to thank him and ask about Kageyama, the door burst open and made the both of them flinch.

“Suga, we gotta go! Right now!”

“Excuse me-”

“They’re here?!” Sugawara spat, pushing himself off of the table and grabbing for his crutch while the doctor looked about in annoyance. Hinata was heaving for breath, a paled, horrified look stuck in his eyes.

“Who’s here? I hardly have a clue on what’s going on-”

“What about Kageyama and Daichi?” Ryouta stumbled backwards as Sugawara made his way past and towards the door, Hinata looked back over his shoulder while chewing his lip.

“Look, he said he had a plan, and really-”

“Police! Sugawara Koushi-”

“Fuck, shit,” Hinata cursed to the voice in the hall while Sugawara hobbled as fast as he could towards him. Catching him off guard, Hinata ran at him and roughly slid his shoulder under Sugawara’s. With strength he hadn’t witness in a while, Hinata lifted him off the floor with a sound of effort, leaving his crutch behind to clamor against the floor.

“What are you kids doing?!”

“Hinata-”

“We gotta go!” Hinata breathed stiffly before making a mad dash out the door, narrowly missing bashing Sugawara’s head off the doorway when he slid into the hall. One of the nurses before was standing petrified in the hallway near the door Kageyama and Daichi had been in, Police skid around the corner just in time for Hinata to curve around another.

“Where are you going?!”

“Back door!”

“But what about Kageyama-”

“Shut up! Just shut up okay!” Hinata rasped, he stumbled up towards a fire escape sign. Thrusting through it and into the open chilly air, gunshots made Sugawara shudder. Tires squealed over the icy pavement and an engine revved. Their sad, dented car slipped along and nearly crashed into another vehicle while maneuvering in the back parking lot. One headlight was cracked, the other completely shattered. Hinata backed up against the door as it suddenly swerved at them, the brakes groaned and the car stopped a few feet off from where they stood.

“Get in!”

Daichi yelled from the front seat at them, a bullet shot through the back window and made him duck. Hinata went stumbling to the car while Sugawara fought to hold on. He yanked open the back car door, police officers came running at them from where they had sat hiding behind other vehicles. Three of them, and not looking too happy. Sugawara tried to move himself off of Hinata to get in the car, but the redhead was three steps ahead of him, tossing him in messily like a bag of sand and jumping in after him.

Before they could even shut the door the car started speeding off, Hinata scrambled while half sitting on him to pull the swinging metal shut. Sugawara struggled out from under him, heaving and looking about the car in a panic.

“You left him behind?!”

“We didn't have any other choice, Suga!” Daichi spat over the wheel, sirens chased them out of the parking lot and on to the road. “He’d be dead if we brought him with us, and we’re dead if we stay!”

“We can’t just abandon him! We worked so hard!” Sugawara pleaded, leaning towards the front seat. Hinata took hold of him again, Sugawara tried to fight out of his grip. “He’s all alone! One of us could have stayed behind!”

“Like hell I’d let Kageyama and you both get left behind, this is the best choice, Sugawara! I know what you were planning and I won’t let that happen!” They pulled a sharp turn that almost sent Hinata and Sugawara to the door, the sirens were overpoweringly loud and the car was cold from the bullet holes letting cool air leak in. Distraught and full to the brim with horror, he let Hinata pull him back against the seat again, who was still trying to find his breath.

“Put on your seat belts, we’re going too fast-”

“Daichi watch out, watch out!”

Sugawara froze up in terror while Hinata held him so hard it stung, a big oil truck came driving up at the four way only feet away to their left. Instead of hitting the breaks, Daichi pressed the gas and the car roared forwards. The oil tanker’s horn blew out at them just as they skimmed past, the car’s engine was blaring but the sound of the police cars colliding to the side of the big truck was louder.


	19. this ones shorter but idc

Hinata sniffed against his side, his orange hair puffed against Sugawara’s chin with arms laced around his middle. With a sweater stuffed against the hole in the back windshield, they’d managed the warm the car up somewhat, though Sugawara still felt cold.

Their escape had been so narrow, and he was surprised that they didn’t end up all dead from it. The oil tank hadn’t exploded immediately when hit, so their car had gotten a safe enough distance away before it blew up. None of them had even dared to look back, and Daichi had driven as fast as he could away for a long time until he finally slowed to a regular speed.

The word “lucky” hardly did justice to how they made their escape. No, there must had been some cruel deity laughing his sadistic ass off at them right then, since the empty feeling inside Sugawara’s chest made him wish he hadn’t made it.

With their ride now smooth, Sugawara kept one arm around Hinata’s shoulders and the other arm crossed over himself and holding one of Hinata’s hands. The boy had been just as upset as himself over this, but less distraught. They’d cried quietly together in the back seat for a while, Sugawara still hadn’t bothered with checking on what the time was. He didn’t even know what day it was, it was beyond him now. The sun was bright coming through the right window, warming his lap with the steady stream in the square shape.

Daichi was quiet up behind the wheel the entire time after. They hadn't argued anymore, Sugawara didn’t have it in him to try. He knew, deep down, Daichi was completely right in what he did. He knew it, he knew this from the very start, but he hated it.

He had no idea where they were going, either. They had been on the road too long for it to be back to the house, but Daichi hadn’t said a word the entire time. Sugawara hadn’t really thought of that before the moment, yet he didn’t have any worry or fear left in him to feel anymore. With a sigh through his nose, he rubbed his thumb over the back of Hinata’s hand, unable to tell if the boy had fallen asleep against him or not.

“Where are we going…?”

“We’re taking Hinata home,” Daichi mumbled after a moment, letting out a breath and letting his shoulders drop. “Then, wherever the road takes us. We need to stop for gas soon.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

“We’ll just stop by the school and drop him off there, it’s closest.”

“B-but...you guys aren’t staying,” Hinata spoke up under his arm, his head moved a little. It was less of a question and more of a sad statement, but Daichi hummed and nodded anyways.

“The rest of the team’s waiting for someone to come back, I’m sure they’ll be overjoyed to see you again.”

Hinata didn’t respond, pushing his head into Sugawara’s side again. He knew it would be tough for Hinata to let them go right after they had up and abandoned Kageyama like that, and Sugawara couldn’t help but feel the same.

His nose twitched, he turned his head the other way to rub his face on his shoulder.

“How long has it been?”

Daichi shrugged, the car started to slow.

“A week, maybe a bit more.”

“...”

Sugawara could almost read the words in Hinata’s eyes; they’d be happy to see him, and would be wondering where Kageyama was. The heavy weight still sat on his shoulders, regret and worry piled up like bricks to make it. Daichi seemed to have the same idea, Sugawara could see his eyes in the rear view mirror.

“Kageyama’s safe, though.”

“I know…”

“I told the woman there to not let them take him far away,” Daichi mumbled, Sugawara and Hinata both perked in surprise.

“Do you think she will…?”

“She tried her hardest to save us back there, I doubt she’d let all this go to waste and see Kageyama get shipped off somewhere far. It’s not the most solid plan, but I think it’s about on par with the rest of the plans we’ve gone through with,” A bit of relief fell over the car, “He can stay there safe until we can get him again.”

Yes, they would just have to try again.

The car pulled into the parking lot near the big rusted sign with the word “GAS” in big, metal letters, just in the split of the trees. Sugawara didn’t remember seeing it on their way here, but he hadn’t been awake for most of that trip, either. They pulled up to a pump in the empty lot, the car slowly stopped before Daichi turned the key. The hum burnt out, leaving them in silence while Daichi got out and shut the door behind himself.

Hinata shifted to sit up a bit better, his hip met Sugawara’s side. He was warm, and his face was still red with tired, sad eyes. Sugawara lifted the hand from the arm around Hinata’s shoulders, ruffling out his hair gently.

“I-I really don’t want to lose you guys, I’m so sorry for all of this.”

“Hinata, don’t apologize, it’s not your fault,” Sugawara reassured, putting up the rest of his effort to smile. “This was me and Daichi’s choice, you were just dragged along in the ride.”

“You hardly even know me for a year, and yet you’ve given up your whole life now!” Hinata sniffled, catching Sugawara’s eyes with his own, filled with sorrow. “Just so me and Kageyama wouldn’t get separated from you guys…”

“It was a dumb plan, I know, right?” Sugawara laughed, but Hinata didn’t laugh along. “Both of us so up in arms to try and save us from losing you forever, and yet we probably won’t get to see you ever again once you get home.”

“Suga you can’t say that!” Hinata burst, holding his hand tighter. “We’ll see each other again! I know it! And we’ll play volleyball again and you can set for us, and Daichi can get angry with us again, like all the other times!”

“Come on now, you’re making yourself upset again,” Sugawara shushed, moving the hand to pinch Hinata’s cheek, already wet with tears once more. The boys lip quivered and his teeth ground, Sugawara gave his hand a gentle squeeze in return, “Maybe if fate has it, we’ll see each other again, I’m sure. You’re going to have to be good and strong for the rest of us, okay? The team’s going to want an answer, and you’ll have to give them a good one if they’re ever going to believe you.”

“Dammit, Sugawara,” Hinata bowed his head and hiccuped, his shoulders trembling. He butted the top of his head into Sugawara’s chin, his arms flew up to wrap around him in a rib crushing hug.

“Stay with Daichi, okay? I better not see your name in the news ever, dammit. Not unless it’s saying you’re coming home again!”

With a pitiful chuckle Sugawara hugged him back, resting his chin on top of Hinata’s head. He couldn’t make any promises, but staying safe was the only plan he had.


	20. you made him curse oh

When they finally rolled back into town, the moon had long since climbed up high in the sky. Clouds dotted over dark blue, but starlight still pushed through to dimly show their way between street lamps. The ride back had somehow felt shorter than the ride there, even if Sugawara was mostly awake quietly talking with Hinata and Daichi this time. They had left the radio on a news station and had heard a report on the three cop car collision with an oil tanker while chasing the tell tale kidnapping teenagers, though luckily they had disappeared fast enough after that that the police had lost their trail again. This wouldn’t last forever, but it was enough for now.

They passed through familiar neighborhoods, houses lit up under the cushion of snow covering the roofs and lawns. Everything was quiet, the radio was off, and Hinata looked to be dozing off again. With a ting of determination, he stayed awake, Sugawara could see how hard he was trying to keep away the look of dismay that crept on harder every passing minute.

Even if they had not quite finished their job yet, and had put the nails in their own coffin of having to stay away from home forever, Sugawara could not find the will to regret saving the two. He was sad, of course, and it hurt just to think about how he would never see his teammates again after this.

He took in a deep breath through his nose.

But it was worth it. It was worth it, and now instead of losing Hinata, Kageyama, and Daichi, he would get to be with Daichi all he wanted. They could start again, and try as hard as they could to be happy.

Sugawara suppressed shivers when they pulled up into the empty school parking lot, the building loomed and his memories made the air thick. Snow made the whole area look soft, millions of footprints lying under a thin sheet of snow. It was deathly quietly, he could feel the whole car holding its breath.

“Do you think my parent’s will be home…?”

“I’m not sure,” Sugawara answered, the car came to a slow stop near the entrance. The lights were left on, but it looked empty. “If they aren’t, try going to someone else's house or the police, they’ll help you from there on.”

Hinata paused a moment, shifting slightly.

“Uh...okay, Suga, Daichi, don’t be mad.”

“What, what does that mean?” A dash of fear flew through him quickly and Daichi looked to the back, a guilty look was stuck on Hinata’s face. Oh god, what could he have-

He slowly took out the hand that had been hiding behind his thigh, his cell phone sitting in his palm.

Sugawara felt his heart drop.

“What do you have that out for?! Have you had this the entire time?” Daichi shifted in his seat to look back, hissing in alarm while Hinata shuddered.

“You’re going away, so-”

A loud bang on the passenger side back window, Sugawara was almost on top of Hinata from how fast he had flown out of way, holding on to the boy's shoulders.

“Fuck-”

“Suga!”

“T-Tanaka!?”

His face was squished up against the window, rosy cheeked and his grin terribly wide and excited. Sugawara tried to catch his breath, hands shaking. Oh god, he had been convinced that Hinata had called the police on them for whatever reason, he was just lucky that he hadn't had a heart attack.

Sugawara could see the top of Noya’s head while he wrestled with Tanaka to try and pry open the door, though neither were gaining headway since it was locked. Sugawara could see Asahi through the front passenger window, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi weren’t far behind. Hinata had called them all here, Sugawara wasn’t sure whether he wanted to hug him again or bark his ear off from how dangerous this was.

“Jeez, we’ll have to do this quick,” Daichi muttered with a sad chuckle while he unlocked his own door, pushing himself out. Hinata laughed a little and helped Sugawara sit back up right on his own. Daichi only made it about half way around the car before he was tackled in a hug from Noya who had given up trying with the door. Their teammates muffled excitement came through, Sugawara felt a strange feeling welling up inside him as Tanaka stepped back just enough so that they could open the door.

Hinata got out first, Tanaka plucked him up into a hug and spun him around, the two laughed giddily and Sugawara grinned, letting his legs fall out while sitting sideways on the seat. The air was freezing, Asahi came running up to him while Daichi was still caught in Noya’s arms, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi bombarded him with questions. He hadn’t seen the two so actively excited in a while.

Asahi stopped a few feet away when Sugawara started to try and get himself up, using the car door and door frame as leverage. He came to a pitiful stand, one leg bent.

“I never thought I would be seeing you again, Hinata’s pretty sneaky.”

“I thought the same, you two are so bad!” Asahi finally broke and caught him in a hug, lifting him off the ground and holding him in a surprisingly gentle but strong grip. He hugged his teammate back, trying his best not to cry for the hundredth time that day. He really missed them, he had been trying to push it down, but he had missed them a lot, even just in a week, when he thought he’d never get to see them again before he left.

The stubble on Asahi’s chin made him shiver when he buried his head in his neck, Sugawara patted his warm shoulders. Maybe he could steal a jacket from one of these guys before he got on the road again, he could sure use it.

“...Where’s Kageyama…?”

The happiness stopped flowing in a stutter for a moment when Tanaka spoke up, Hinata put down in front of him again. Asahi pulled back from the hug, Sugawara rocked back onto one heel and luckily didn’t sway. Hinata’s shoulders drooped.

“We...uh...”

“He’s safe for now, that’s all that matters,” Sugawara spoke up first, Asahi looked to him in wonder while Tanaka didn’t seem to understand too well. Daichi approached with the others tailing him, Tsukishima looked unsatisfied with what little information Daichi was giving him.

“Where have you guys been, anyways?”

“I’m sure you’ll hear about it on the news soon enough,” Sugawara sighed, Asahi backed up a little with a wary look towards Sugawara’s leg. “We’re not going back, though.”

“That means…?”

“We’ll be leaving to hide somewhere farther, probably,” Daichi took his turn to speak up, his voice kept matter of fact and hard while his teammates looked on in surprise and sadness. “Maybe out of country, if we can make it that far.”

“They’re still after you? I heard it was for kidnapping two kids, but…” Yamaguchi’s brows were furrowed together and Tsukishima grunted at his side.

“It’s a really long story,” Sugawara laughed, a hand went to the back of his head, “I’m sure Hinata can fill you in with what he knows. It’s so far fetched, I’m not sure if you’ll believe it.”

“I wouldn’t blame them, either,” Daichi grinned, shaking his head to the ground with a light chuckle. Maybe Noya and Tanaka, but it would take a lot of explaining, and with what little time they had-

“You two are being too calm about this!” Noya burst at Daichi’s side, voice squeaked with distress, “You’re leaving? For how long? You just got back!”

“You two are too calm about it! You’re apart of our team!” Tanaka added, fist’s clenched. “Not even just that- you’re our friends! How are we supposed to deal with this?!”

“How are you two even dealing with this?” Tsukishima murmured, Asahi bit his lip and looked to be trying to see an answer in Sugawara’s face. Sugawara simply pulled a grin again.

“I don’t want this to be a sad departure, guys. I don’t want the last thing I see of you guys to be a sad one.”

“It’s too late for that, asshole!” Tanaka wailed, starting to tear up again. “Suga, Daichi, guys! You can’t just leave us like this!”

“These two are too nice for their own god,” Hinata hiccuped again, running his arm over his face.

“You guys… please stay safe…” Asahi even started up again, voice wavering and eyes sad. Tsukishima looked away, a hand covered his mouth while Yamaguchi stared at the ground. Sugawara understood perfectly well that they knew they had to go, but this wouldn’t stop them from being stubborn and angry like always.

Tanaka jumped on him with another hug, this time Hinata joined it and Daichi stepped closer on his other side. He felt jostling on both sides as others joined into the group ordeal, Sugawara burst into more laughter as Tanaka buried his head under his chin and Daichi pressed his face into his cheek, Hinata caught under one of his arms and Asahi easily encompassed the outside of the group. Tsukishima was caught under Asahi’s arm against Daichi’s side, Noya just at his chest level and Yamaguchi under Asahi’s other arm.

Daichi pressed a kiss to one of his cheeks, Sugawara grinned and hugged Tanaka in front of him tighter. Noya twitched a little in his spot.

“What was that?”

“Oh nothing.”

“Did I just hear-”

“Oh man, it’s chilly out here. Tanaka, you should give me your coat.”

“What?”

Sugawara chuckled, “I lost mine to the school, you wouldn’t believe what a cold pain it has been limping around without a coat on.”

“Hey- why me? Not that I mind…” Tanaka muttered as he brought his head back up, Sugawara grinned guiltily.

“You’re the only one who they would expect to lose their jacket, and own one that would fit me.”

“Huh, well you’re not wrong.”

The small crowd dispersed slowly while Tanaka wrestled off his jacket, handing it over to Sugawara who grinned giddily.

“Thank you!”

“No problem, man. I guess it’s the least I could do.”

Sugawara slipped on the black jacket, Daichi kept a hand on his side to make sure he didn’t fall over. Once he was all zippered up, he looked around the group.

“Well, now you should all go home as fast as you can, it’s cold and late outside, I don’t want Tanaka getting sick or any of your parent’s wondering where you’re at.”

“Suga!” A few voices broke in but Daichi waved a hand.

“It’s an order from a third year, guys. The team should do as they're told and work together, that’s what makes us a team.”

Falling quiet again, saddened faces watched back to their own. Even if they weren’t going to be together anymore, they were still a team.

“We have to get going, soon, anyways,” Sugawara hummed gently, bringing back his smile. “It’s not good to stay in one spot for long now.”

“That’s right, it’s cold, anyways,” Daichi agreed, stepping sideways so he could tug on the passenger side door handle. The team watched in a sullen silence as Sugawara hopped over to the open doorway, but Daichi turned and looked back Hinata’s way.

“And don’t worry about Kageyama. I promise we’ll get him back, and we’ll bring him right to this same spot once we do. Be ready for that, okay?”

Caught by surprise, Hinata floundered a second before catching himself with a determined look, eyes still shining with tears, “Y-yes! We’ll be ready!”

“Good,” Sugawara grinned back, giving a firm nod and a thumbs up. He grabbed hold of the roof of the car and one of Daichi’s hands, easing himself steadily to a sit into the cold car seat. He nearly toppled over if it hadn't been for Daichi who kept a firm grip on his hand. Daichi leaned in a little, still holding his hand with a smile.

“Got it?”

“Yep.”

“Let's go.”


End file.
